Like so many parts of the city and the nation, Clark Field was once
a farm—a swampy but arable plot stretching from Auburn Avenue to
the Cuyahoga River. In the late 1940s, the city of Cleveland bought
67 acres of the farm to use as a recreation area for area
residents. For the next three years, the city filled in the swampy
areas. On immediately adjoining land, the federal government
continued to maintain garages stocked with army surplus material.
These 17 acres were later added to the park and the garages were
removed.

In 1951 the City of Cleveland allocated $75,000 for a Clark
Field play area, a football field and two baseball diamonds. Later,
a stadium was built with concession stands and restrooms. For
several decades, Lincoln High School and Cleveland Central Catholic
High School played football games on Friday nights and often
practiced there during the week. Tennis courts were built and
children were enrolled in city-sponsored tennis leagues and
tournaments. Every child in the program received a free tennis
racket and lessons.

Over the years, the field deteriorated and the stadium was
demolished. Concurrent with the depopulation of Tremont, park use
plummeted. Baseball teams still played there (Little League, men’s
leagues, a Republic Steel team), but the park’s principal features
became discarded tires, empty beer bottles, drug paraphernalia and
danger. Large gaps appeared in the tennis courts. Clark Field
became a dumping ground and the place to go to burn a car.

In 2001, area residents banded together to take the park back.
Friends of Clark Field was formed in 2002—in collaboration with the
Mentor-Castle-Clark block club, Kent State Urban School of Design,
and the City of Cleveland’s Parks and Recreation Department and
Research, Planning and Development Departments. The new
organization developed a master plan focused on cleaning up the
park, bringing back recreation activities and maximizing safety.
More than 100 trees were planted, a basketball court was added, and
waste receptacles, picnic tables and benches made from recyclable
materials were installed. Friends of Clark Field also worked to
bring the first dog park to the city.

From 2012 to 2014, friends of Clark Field held regular free
events for children and families. Funded by grants, Clark Field
hosted Friday night movies, Easter egg hunts, Halloween parties,
arts and crafts days, and family nights with ice cream, snow cones,
popcorn, balloons, face painting, free books, pizza, apples and
entertainment. Flag football teams began using Clark Field. High
school baseball and men’s and women’s softball teams played weekly
games. High school football practices returned. Flower and tree
planting continued, along with regular maintenance and cleanup
days. Under the aegis of the Cleveland Metroparks, plans were laid
for a Towpath Trail Extension, which will ring the western and
northern borders of Clark Field, running from the northern entrance
of Steelyard Commons to Literary Avenue.

In 2015, the City of Cleveland stopped issuing permits for
events and sports at Clark Field so soil testing could be
undertaken in preparation for additional park upgrades.
Unfortunately, EPA tests revealed that several areas required soil
reclamation—a slow and costly process. Consequently, the flow of
traffic and events slowed significantly. Tests continue as of this
writing. However, members of Friends of Clark Field are confident
that—once remediation efforts are completed, the master plan fully
implemented, and the Towpath Trail completed—Clark Field will
reclaim and most likely exceed the significant progress achieved in
the previous one and a half decades.

In 1910, Daniel Rhodes Hanna, a wealthy industrialist and son of
legendary political kingmaker Marcus Hanna, bought the Cleveland
Leader, an historic, but struggling, daily newspaper. The Leader's
offices were at the time located in a small two-story building on
the south side of Superior Avenue, just west of that street's
intersection with East Sixth Street. Directly across Superior, a
massive five-story building was slowly going up. Built in two
phases, and stretching all the way from Superior Avenue to Rockwell
Avenue, it was the new home of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the
city's leading morning newspaper.

Over the next three years, "Dan" Hanna would invest heavily in
the newspaper industry in an attempt to increase the circulation of
the Leader and make it, as it had once been in the nineteenth
century, a viable competitor of the Plain Dealer. In 1912, he
purchased the Cleveland News, giving him control of an afternoon,
as well as a morning, daily. Then, from 1913 to 1914, he engaged in
a nasty and costly circulation war with the Plain Dealer. And finally,
he tore down the Leader's two-story building and replaced it with
an elegant, state-of-the-art 14-story building, which not only
dwarfed the new Plain Dealer building across the street, but became
the largest office building erected in Cleveland to date.

Despite the magnitude of Hanna's efforts, and the long shadow
which the new Leader-News Building cast--literally--on its
competitor across the street, the Cleveland Leader continued to
struggle in the newspaper industry and, in 1917, it went out of
business. But, though the newspaper itself disappeared from the
city, the building Hanna erected did not. Later renamed "The Leader
Building," it has now stood on the corner of East Sixth and
Superior for more than a century, and, though no longer downtown
Cleveland's largest office building, it remains one of its most
elegant and historic.

The Leader Building was erected in 1912-1913 on grounds that
were already steeped in Cleveland history. Since 1854, most of the
site had been home to Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, the place where
many of the city's pioneer merchants and industrialists first
worshiped. In 1902, after the Episcopal Diocese had relocated to
its present-day site on the corner of Euclid Avenue and East 22nd
Street, the Wardens and Vestrymen of Trinity sold the church's
property on Superior Avenue to Ralph King, then downtown's largest
real estate developer and a patron and future President of the
Board of Trustees of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

In 1905, King built a small two-story structure--call it the
first Leader Building--on the site of the old Trinity Cathedral,
wedging it in between the Arcade Building to the west and the
Samuel Raymond mansion, by this time a boarding house with a
one-story commercial addition attached to its front, to the east.
This first Leader Building was standing for only five years when
Dan Hanna bought the Cleveland Leader and then arranged for the
construction of the second and much larger Leader Building, which
would cover all of the grounds once occupied by Trinity Cathedral
and its Parish House, as well as those of the Samuel Raymond
mansion on the corner.

The new Leader Building was designed by Charles A. Platt, a New
York architect whom Eleanor Roosevelt once referred to as "an
architect of great taste." Platt designed the Sara Delano Roosevelt
townhouse in New York, which is now an historic landmark, as well
as many other buildings across the country, a number of which
remain standing, including the Smithsonian's Freer Art Gallery in
Washington, D.C. Platt's plan called for the Leader Building to
occupy nearly all of the large site at the corner of Superior
Avenue and East Sixth Street. The rectangular-shaped Beaux-Arts
style building with a limestone block exterior takes up 150 feet of
the site's 160 feet of frontage on Superior Avenue and 215 feet of
the 220 feet of depth on East Sixth Street. It has a total of more
than 300,000 square feet of interior space, almost 250,000 square
feet of which over the years has been built-out for offices. The
interior of the building is constructed with many notable quality
materials, and features marble walls, maple wood floors, a grand
lobby with columns, wrought iron screens and other ornamentation,
and bronze elevators said to have been designed by Tiffany.

When the Leader Building first opened in 1913, it housed the
presses of the Cleveland Leader and the Cleveland News in its
basement. Its first floor was entirely occupied by the business
offices of the two newspapers and the fourteenth (top) floor by the
staffs of the two separate editorial departments. The remaining 12
floors were leased to a variety of business tenants, including the
prestigious law firm of Squires, Sanders and Dempsey, which rented
the entire 12th floor. After the Cleveland Leader went out of
business in 1917, the Cleveland News continued to occupy the
basement, and first and 14th floors of the Leader Building until
1926, when it moved to a new and more modern newspaper plant
building at East 18th Street and Superior Avenue. The basement,
which formerly held printing presses, became home to the Colonnade
Cafeteria, which served building tenants and others working
downtown for the next 60 years.

As the years passed, the Leader Building became known not for
the newspapers once printed there, but instead for the many law
firms that continued to locate there. In the early years of the
twenty-first century, however, a glut of available office space in
the downtown area developed and tenants began to leave older
buildings like the Leader Building. In 2014, with its occupancy
rate declining, the building was sold to K & D Properties, a
local company specializing in real property management. In 2016, K
& D, in response to a demand for more residential units in
downtown Cleveland, began converting the upper floors of the Leader
Building into apartments. It is a process that, in recent years,
has given new life to many downtown buildings, and now promises to
give new life to the historic Leader Building.

The mid-1800s were a busy time for the near east side Catholic
residents of Cleveland along the Superior Avenue corridor. The
Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist was dedicated upon completion
in 1852 and also housed a school on its grounds. Within a year,
Father John Luhr founded Saint Peter parish just nine blocks east
on Superior Avenue for Cleveland's German congregation and
completed construction of a church and school within two years. The
demand was not finished. Further out Superior, the spiritual needs
of the Irish residents required the attention of the Bishop. In
1855, Bishop Rappe chartered a mission at Superior and Lyman (East
41st) Streets to become the Church of the Immaculate Conception.
The first structure of the mission was the Church of the Nativity
which originally stood at the site of the Cathedral of St. John. It
served as the mission church and school for a decade. Another frame
building was built to serve the parishioners for the next decade
until the present church structure was completed.

During the growth of the mission into the parish (1856 - 1870),
the congregation fluctuated in size and support under two pastors,
delaying the development and construction of its permanent home. An
energetic pastor, Fr. Thomas Thorpe, mounted the effort to see the
construction through and on August 17, 1873, the cornerstone of the
Church of the Immaculate Conception was laid with nearly 10,000
city residents looking on. By its dedication in 1878, the early
English Gothic designed church structure of Berea sandstone
measured 169 by 91 feet. Two "well proportioned spires, the highest
of which will be two hundred and seventy-five feet" grace the front
of the church with another smaller spire at its rear. Fr. Thorpe
enjoyed the support of both his parishioners and many
non-parishioner neighborhood residents. Bishop Gilmour reflected
upon that support in his comments during the ceremony marking
"progress in the world both in intelligence and in virtue."

Rapid population growth during the next 20 years saw the
development of new neighboring parishes that emerged east and south
of Superior Avenue: St. Aloysius in Glenville, St. Agnes and St.
Agatha on Euclid Avenue, St. Columbkille on Superior Avenue. While
its school continued to thrive, Immaculate Conception hosted
temperance societies, a band, and was the center of many Irish
festivities and celebrations every year including the central
gathering place for St. Patrick's Day parade festivities. The
parish maintained its prominence in the community through the
second world war, however, the postwar suburban growth and urban
transition brought reduced numbers of parishioners and school
enrollees. Over the past few decades, Immaculate Conception has
maintained a multiethnic parish and school, while serving the whole
Cleveland community with the celebration of the Tridentine Latin
masses.

As the Ohio-Erie Canal, built between 1828 and 1832, was nearing
completion, many in Cleveland caught "canal fever" and began to
believe that their town was so strategically situated on the Great
Lakes and along the new canal that it was destined to become an
important world trade center. One man who invested in that belief
was James S. Clarke, the former Sheriff of Cuyahoga County and, in
the decade of the 1830s, one of the biggest real estate speculators
in Cleveland. In 1831, Clarke, Richard Hilliard (a wealthy dry
goods merchant), and Edmund Clark (an insurance agent and banker)
formed a partnership and purchased fifty acres of land just south
of the Village of Cleveland in Cleveland Township. The acreage
constituted the southern part of a peninsula surrounded on three
sides by the Cuyahoga River and located just south of the river's
first bend. On this land, then known as Case's Point (but which
today is a part of the Flats we know as Ox Bow Bend or Columbus
Road Peninsula), the partnership platted a development in 1833
called "Cleveland Centre," which featured streets named after
foreign countries—British, French, German, China and
Russia—radiating from a hub called Gravity Place, an appropriate
name, they thought, for a future center of world trade and
business. The land was ideally situated just south of the new Canal
Basin, where Great Lakes ships traveling up the Cuyahoga River were
expected to anchor and receive or transfer cargo to or from
awaiting canal boats.

Lots in the new development sold well in the early years and
soon a small village sprouted at Cleveland Centre. Commission
merchant offices, warehouses and docks were built on the western
side of the development, primarily on Merwin Street, where a young
John D. Rockefeller got his first job as an accounting clerk years
later. On the east side of the development, a residential
neighborhood formed around Columbus Street (today, Columbus Road),
the main avenue running north-south through the Centre. It wasn't
long before there were so many Irish and German working-class
immigrants living there that, in 1838, they built the first Roman
Catholic church in Cleveland, St. Mary's on the Flats. Cleveland
Centre also received a boost in the 1830s by Clarke's construction
of the Columbus Street Bridge in 1835—the first permanent bridge
across the Cuyahoga River at Cleveland—and in 1836 by the platting
of Willeyville. Another development by Clarke and others,
Willeyville was located on land directly across the river from
Cleveland Centre and connected to it by the Columbus Street
Bridge.

Despite James S. Clarke's optimism and promotion, and the
promising beginning in the decade of the 1830s, Cleveland Centre,
which was annexed to Cleveland in 1835, did not become a center of
international trade and business. Instead, a national economic
crisis—the Panic of 1837—intervened, ending "canal fever" in
Cleveland and ruining James S. Clarke. After the economy recovered,
it was the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Railroad (CC&C),
rather than international trade merchants, that arrived in
Cleveland Centre. In 1851, the CC&C purchased twelve acres of
land on the south end of the Centre—almost one-quarter of the
entire development—and there built an engine roundhouse and other
maintenance and repair facilities for its trains. The arrival of
railroads here and elsewhere in Cleveland in this era coincided
with the city's early industrial development, and in the years that
followed a number of industrial buildings went up at Cleveland
Centre, on or near the tracks of the railroad. Sometimes, the
construction of these buildings required that portions of the
streets that radiated from Gravity Place be vacated, and this, over
the years, damaged the beauty and symmetry of the original street
plan. The residential neighborhood on the east side of the
development likewise suffered from the arrival of the railroad and
the intensive industrial development. By 1880, St. Mary's had
closed its doors and many of its former parishioners had moved out
of the Flats.

The name "Cleveland Centre" itself lost its cachet sometime in
the late nineteenth century as the place became better known as
just part of the industrial Flats. When Cleveland experienced
de-industrialization in the mid-twentieth century, Cleveland
Centre, like the rest of the Flats, languished for several decades
as a place of mostly closed factories and empty warehouses. That
began to turn around in the decade of the 1970s when the Flats
experienced rebirth as a city entertainment district. Cleveland
Centre was not, in the early years of this rebirth, home to many of
the entertainment venues, which tended to locate to the north,
closer to the lake. However, in the early twenty-first century, a
number of acres in the southern part of the Centre, formerly owned
by the CC&C Railroad and its successors, were re-purposed for
recreational use and became home to the Commodore's Club Marina,
the Cleveland Rowing Foundation and Cleveland Metroparks' Rivergate
Park, which featured a skatepark and a riverside restaurant called
Merwin's Wharf. With Cleveland Centre becoming a trendy place once
again, Dan Rothenfeld, a local artist, taking it all in and perhaps
channeling the ghost of James S. Clarke, proposed in 2016 that
historic markers be placed there and that the original radial
streets and hub at Gravity Place be lighted so that both on the
ground and from the air people could remember and commemorate this
early era attempt to build an international trade center in the
Flats. And why not? It is not the first time that grand plans have
been laid out at this place.

It’s 1956 and you’re a Clevelander looking for something to do.
Maybe you should “make plans to come aboard the magnificent
Aquarama for a memorable cruise,” as an early ad urges. Or
perhaps it’s 1958 and “you are looking for an inexpensive vacation
idea this summer.” If that sounds good, another ad suggests, “the
luxurious lake-cruising ocean liner S.S. Aquarama may be
for you.” Then again, it might be 1962 and you’re casually
searching for the fountain of youth. In that case, “you’ll want to
live forever on the spectacular Aquarama moonlight
cruise.”

If this seems too good to be true, it isn't–or at least wasn't.
Between 1956 and 1962, Clevelanders could enjoy one-day round-trip
cruises from Cleveland to Detroit and Detroit to Cleveland in a
“fabulous new, eight million dollar passenger ship,” according to
an ad in the Plain Dealer. One day cost in 1956? $2.50 to
$3.25 on weekdays; $3.25 to $4.00 on weekends. Evening cruises also
were available: $4.00 for Lounge Class and $4.75 for Club Class. A
trip to Detroit (or Cleveland) never looked so good. What's more,
auto travelers could take advantage of what one promotional
brochure touted as "A New Auto Short-Cut Across Lake Erie" which
"saves 180 driving miles." Combined with another passenger/auto
ferry ship–the S.S. Milwaukee Clipper between Muskegon,
Michigan, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin–one could drive or ride in a
virutally straight line from Cleveland to Milwaukee.

The Aquarama began its life in 1945 as a transoceanic
troop carrier called the Marine Star: 520 feet and 12,733
tons. It made only one Atlantic Ocean trip before combat ceased.
Eight years later, the ship was purchased by Detroit’s Sand
Products Company and taken to Muskegon, Michigan, where it
underwent an $8 million, two-year conversion, and was reborn as a
nine-deck luxury-class ferry capable of carrying 2,500 passengers
and 160 cars. The rechristened Aquarama also touted five
bars, four restaurants, two dance floors, a movie theater, a
television theater, and a playroom. Special events often were held
in conjunction with day or evening cruises. For example, on June
10, 1962, passengers were treated to a style show from Lane
Bryant’s Tall Girl Department. The next month, evening cruisers on
the Aquarama could watch the Miss World finals. Regular
shipboard entertainment included musical performances, dancing,
marionette shows, games, and contests.

The cruise portion of the ship’s life actually began in 1955,
with tours to various Great Lakes ports and a brief stint as a
“floating amusement palace” docked along Chicago's Navy Pier. Soon
after, service began focusing solely on runs between Cleveland and
Detroit: six hours “door to door” with Cleveland-based passengers
embarking in the morning from (and returning in late evening to)
the West 3rd Street pier. For the next six years, the
Aquarama was extremely popular but never profitable. Part
of the problem may have been frequent “incidents”: One summer, the
Aquarama backed into a seawall. A year later, it hit a
dock in Cleveland. A week after that, it banged into a Detroit
dock, damaging a warehouse. Alcohol issues also were recurrent:
Accusations included untaxed booze and liquor sold in Ohio waters
on Sunday. Still, the ship’s most likely death knell was simply
high operating costs.

The Aquarama made its last trip on September 4, 1962.
It then was towed back to where it had been rebuilt–Muskegon,
Michigan, ostensibly to continue as cruise vessel. Unfortunately, a
prohibitively large dredging investment was needed to accommodate
the harbor. The Aquarama thus sat dockside—residing (but
not operating) later in Sarnia, Ontario, Windsor, Ontario, and
Buffalo, New York, where entrepreneurs hoped in vain to convert it
to a floating casino. In 2007 the Aquarama was towed to
Aliağa, Turkey, where it was broken up for scrap.

For a half dozen years, Clevelanders could enjoy an oceangoing
experience on the Great Lakes. But neither Cleveland nor Detroit
were slated to remain hot destinations. As beautiful as the open
lake surely was, the decrepitude of the ends (the destinations) was
less and less able to justify the beauty of the means (the travel).
As a Plain Dealer editorial noted on July 4, 1956, “[the]
Aquarama’s spit and polish makes you wince a bit when you look at
our present lakefront. From the ship’s portholes, our port looks
more like a hole.”

Josiah Barber might have never set foot in Ohio if his first wife,
Abigail Gilbert, hadn't died in 1797, leaving him with a young
daughter to raise. In 1802, he married Sophia Lord of East Haddam,
Connecticut, and, in doing so, became a member of the prominent
Lord family. Several years later, after his new father-in-law had
purchased nearly all of the land in what would become Brooklyn
Township, Josiah became a partner in the family business of selling
land in the new township. In 1818, he and his wife and four
children moved to Brooklyn township, where he organized the first
township government and then laid out the first village lot
development. While the survey of this village, which included a
public square probably not unlike that in the village of Cleveland,
appears to no longer exist, county deed records suggest that the
approximate village boundaries were Detroit Avenue on the north,
West 28th Street on the west, the Cuyahoga River on the east, and
Monroe Avenue on the south. The first village lots were sold in
1820 and the village soon became known as Brooklyn.

In the same year that village development on the west bank
began, Barber and Noble Merwin, who owned land across the river,
obtained a license from the Ohio Legislature to build a permanent
bridge across the Cuyahoga River. However, the demand for village
lots in the 1820s turned out to be not sufficient to justify the
expense of building that bridge, and the two men, probably wisely,
allowed their license to expire. In the decade that followed, that
would all change.

As a result of the building of the Ohio-Erie Canal (1825-1834),
land speculation fever hit northeast Ohio in the early 1830s. The
first investors to seize the opportunity that presented itself on
the west bank were two Cleveland merchant bankers, Charles Gidding
and Norman C. Baldwin, who were capitalized by a group of investors
from Buffalo led by Benjamin F. Tyler, son-in-law of a wealthy
judge. In 1833, this group--known as the Buffalo Company, purchased
Lorenzo Carter's farm and laid out a village on the west side near
the mouth of the Cuyahoga River with 52 blocks and 1,100 lots. The
development was bounded on the east by the river, on the north by
the old river bed, on the south by Detroit Avenue, and on the west
by what is today West 28th Street. With its warehouses and docks
located in the west flats and its houses and retail shops up on the
hill, it soon became known as West Cleveland, or simply West
Village.

Josiah Barber too capitalized on this speculation fever. In
1831, he and his brother-in-law Richard Lord, who had moved to
Brooklyn Township in 1826, formed a real estate partnership, and in
1835, they began planning for a redesign and re-subdivision of
Brooklyn Village. They replaced the original public square with a
circle-- at first called Franklin Place but later Franklin Circle,
which featured streets emanating from it like spokes of a wheel,
and they greatly increased the number of lots in the subdivision.
The new village design and development was not altogether different
from that of Cleveland Centre on the east side at Oxbow Bend, which
had been laid out in 1833 by an investor group led by former county
sheriff, James S. Clarke. This group decided to invest also on the
west side, and in 1835 purchased land from Barber and Lord east of
today's West 25th Street that extended south beyond Lorain Avenue.
The group named their new development "Willeyville," after one of
their investors, John Willey, who also happened to be the mayor of
Cleveland. As part of the land purchase, the Clarke group was
assigned the new state bridge license that Barber had obtained and
undertook an obligation to build a bridge across the Cuyahoga River
connecting the nearby developments on both sides of the river.
Within the year, the Columbus Street bridge--the first permanent
bridge across the river, was built.

As the decade continued to unfold, village development in the
West Village area also expanded. In 1835, Ezekiel Folsom, a partner
of Josiah Barber and Richard Lord in the Cuyahoga Steam Furnace
Company, purchased 100 acres of the Charles Taylor farm--located
immediately to the west of both West Village and Brooklyn Village,
and laid out streets and village lots on the north and south sides
of Detroit Avenue, pushing the western boundary of village
development all the way to Harbor (West 44th) Street.

In the same year that Folsom began converting Charles Taylor's
farm into village lots, community leaders on both sides of the
river began openly discussing the need for a city charter to
effectively address all of the issues and problems that came with
rapid urban growth. Many on the west side--undoubtedly led by
Josiah Barber, supported forming a single city on both sides of the
river. However, most Clevelanders disagreed, fearing that the new
city would be controlled by investors from Buffalo, then a much
larger city than Cleveland. In the end, separate charters were
sought for each side of the river. On March 3, 1836, Ohio City,
officially known as the City of Ohio, came into existence. Notable
in its charter was the new western boundary line set along the
western line of original Brooklyn Township Lot No. 50, which today
would be between West 58th and West 59th Streets.

Josiah Barber, who, more than anyone else, shaped the first
urban community on the west bank of the Cuyahoga River, was elected
the first mayor of Ohio City in 1836. He served only one one-year
term and died just five years after that in 1842, more than a
decade before the annexation of Ohio City to the City of Cleveland
in 1854. He also didn't live to seen one last territorial change
for the historic first city on the west bank. In 1853, one year
before the City of Ohio was annexed to Cleveland, its voters
approved an annexation proposal that, among other things, extended
the western territorial limits of the city all the way to Alger
(West 67th) Street. Given the efforts that Josiah Barber had made
to establish this west side urban community and to then literally
build a bridge between it and Cleveland on the east bank of the
river, both annexations would have been events that he would have
celebrated heartily.

Many would argue that the heart of Cleveland's historic Polish
community lies at St. Stanislaus Church and in Slavic Village on
the southeast side of the city. But there is so much more to
Cleveland's Polish community than this one church and that one
branded neighborhood. In search of housing located close to where
they found work in Cleveland's booming late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries industry, Polish immigrants clustered in at
least six distinct neighborhoods in the city, each of which they
colorfully named either after the church which they built there or
to remember a city in Poland dear to them. One of these Polish
neighborhoods was Josephatowa, located on the northeast side of the
city--very near to where Asiatown is today. It was named after the
St. Josaphat Roman Catholic parish established there by Polish
immigrants in the early twentieth century.

Polish immigrants began arriving in numbers in this neighborhood
in the early 1890s, finding work at a number of factories and mills
that were built near the tracks of the Lake Shore and Michigan
Southern, and Pennsylvania Railroad lines. One of these was the
mammoth Otis Steel Works (later purchased by Jones & Laughlin)
which in the second-half of the nineteenth century built a complex
of mills, warehouses, and office buildings that eventually
stretched for more than a half mile along the lakefront from East
25th Street to East 40th Street. Poles who worked at Otis Steel, or
at other nearby factories or mills, first found housing on Lakeside
and Hamilton Avenues, much of it built and first occupied by other
ethnic groups, including Irish, Germans, Slovenians and Croatians.
From there the colony spread to other streets south of
Lakeside.

In the early years, Poles worshiped with Lithuanians at St.
George Lithuanian Catholic Church at the corner of East 21st and
Oregon (Rockwell) Avenue. But when that parish moved to a new
location further east, Poles living in the neighborhood sought and
in 1908 received permission from the bishop to form their own
parish. At first named after St. Hedwig, the parish was soon
renamed St. Josaphat to distinguish it from the identically-named
Polish parish founded in Lakewood's Birdtown neighborhood in the
same year. For almost a decade after the founding of the parish,
masses were held in the chapel at St. John's Cathedral. Then, in
1915, the parish's second pastor, Rev. Joseph Kocinski, undertook
to construct a church building on several lots which the parish had
purchased several years earlier on the east side of East 33rd
Street, between Superior and St. Clair Avenues. The new church,
which was designed to seat 800 at church services, was completed in
1917. One of its stained glass windows depicted a fifteenth century
battle scene in which a Polish army defeated the German Teutonic
Knights. That stained glass window was said to later become a
source of irritation for one of Cleveland's bishops who was of
German descent.

Like many other Catholic parishes founded by East European
immigrants, St. Josaphat had periods of growth and decline. Early
in its history it experienced a precipitous drop in membership when
a number of Polish immigrants returned to Europe, followed by
others who departed to attend St. Stanislaus in the Warszawa
neighborhood to the south. But the church persevered, reaching a
peak population of approximately 1,000 parishioners in the late
1930s. But then, as large employers like Otis Steel moved their
operations away from lakefront, as small industrial shops "invaded"
some of the residential streets, and as people began to move from
the neighborhood to the suburbs, the church suffered a decline in
its membership from which, this time, it did not recover. In 1966,
the elementary school closed and three decades after that, in 1998,
the church itself was closed by the diocese.

St. Josaphat might have met the fate of other shuttered inner
city Catholic Churches, which struggled to find a new use after
closing, but fortunately that was not the case. In the same year
that it closed, a Croatian immigrant, Alenka Banco, who had grown
up in the neighborhood, happened to drive by the church while
furniture was being removed. Intrigued, she contacted the diocese
and learned that the church was for sale. A patron of the arts who
had already opened two art galleries in Cleveland, Banco made an
offer to purchase the church. While, according to church officials,
it had received higher dollar offers for the property, Banco’s
offer was deemed the best, and was accepted, because she proposed
to devote the church property to a community use. Banco moved into
the former rectory on the property and, with a business partner,
began making repairs and renovations to the church building which
she renamed Josaphat Arts Hall. In late 2005, she opened
Convivium33, an art gallery, in the former church building. One
Cleveland journalist with an eye toward turning a phrase said that
the historic Polish church had been purchased, and saved, by an
angel.

It was not the first Sidaway Bridge. That one--the longest wooden
bridge in Cleveland history, was a massive trestle bridge that
stretched 675 feet across and 80 feet above the Kingsbury Run,
connecting the Jackowo Polish neighborhood on the south side with
the then largely Hungarian Kinsman Road neighborhood on the north.
It was built as a pedestrian or "foot" bridge in 1909 by the Tom
Johnson administration at the urging of three citizen groups from
the two neighborhoods who believed, according to a Plain Dealer
editorial at the time, that connecting the two communities--then
largely white and ethnic, together by a bridge would contribute to
their mutual commercial and general welfare.

That bridge--initially called the Tod-Kinsman Bridge, but,
within a year of its opening renamed the Sidaway Bridge after the
new approach road that had been created during its construction,
served that purpose for more than twenty years, and as well
provided a convenient shortcut for folks on the north side of the
Kingsbury Run to walk to Dahler's, a popular beer garden in the
Jackowo neighborhood. In the late 1920s, however, the bridge's
braced wooden framework became an obstruction for the Nickel Plate
Railroad, now owned by the Van Sweringen Brothers, who desired to
build several car barns at this location in Kingsbury Run for their
Shaker Heights rapid transit line. The city and the railroad agreed
that the trestle bridge would come down and that the railroad would
bear the cost of replacing it with a new bridge, one that would
allow for continued pedestrian travel between the Jackowo and
Kinsman Road neighborhoods, while at the same time creating open
space below for the new rapid transit buildings.

The new Sidaway bridge was designed in 1929 by Fred L. Plummer,
a talented Cleveland engineer, who was both a professor of
engineering at the Case School of Applied Science (later called the
Case Institute of Technology) and a design professional at the
engineering firm of Wilbur Watson and Associates. Plummer designed
it as a suspension bridge, a popular type of bridge form in the
United States in the 1920s. Using an intricate series of
weight-bearing steel cables, suspension bridges allow for great
expanses of bridge deck with a minimum number of support towers.
Completed in 1930, the new Sidaway Bridge was the first and remains
to this day the only suspension bridge ever built in Cleveland.

Just a few years after the new bridge opened and pedestrian
travel across the Kingsbury Run resumed, the Run became locally
notorious as the result of a series of grisly murders, known as the
Cleveland Torso Murders, which occurred between 1935-1938. At least
12 women were murdered in the stretch and, in at least four of the
murders, the women's mutilated corpses were dumped at various
locations there. On top of this, just several years later, in June
1942, as the memory of the Torso Murders was fading, the body of
another woman who had been murdered was found on a hillside under
the Sidaway Bridge.

Notoriety did not depart from this area of Cleveland even when
the Kingsbury Run murders came to an end. In the next three
decades, a new type of notoriety for the two neighborhoods arrived,
when the Kinsman Road neighborhood transitioned from one that had
been largely white and ethnic to one that was largely
African-American. Portions of that latter neighborhood had severely
deteriorated housing and, in the years 1955-1959, under a federal
urban renewal program, 130 acres, between East 71st and East 79th
Streets, was cleared of that housing and the 650-unit Garden Valley
subsidized housing project built. An increased number of
African-American children began using the Sidaway Bridge to walk to
Tod Elementary School, the public school in the still largely white
and ethnic Jackowo neighborhood. And now the Sidaway Bridge
connected a black and a white community in a city where, in the
early 1960s, racial tension was mounting.

In 1966, this tension erupted in the form of the Hough Riots.
During the riots, the Sidaway Bridge became a flash point,
literally, when someone--likely from the Jackowo neighborhood,
removed planking from the bridge and attempted to set it on fire,
preventing anyone, particularly residents of the Kinsman Road
neighborhood, from using it. Rather than repair the bridge and keep
it open to the public, the City of Cleveland elected instead to
close it. A decade later, that decision came back to haunt the
city, when, in 1976, federal district court judge Frank Battisti,
in the course of issuing his busing order to desegregate
Cleveland's public schools, cited the closing of the Sidaway Bridge
as evidence that city and school officials had worked in concert to
segregate the schools on the basis of race.

Fifty years have now passed since the Sidaway Bridge was closed
during the Cleveland Hough Riots. All that time the beautiful
suspension bridge erected in 1930 has patiently waited for repair
and reopening. From time to time, such proposals have been made,
but to date they have come to naught. Until it is repaired and
reopened, it cannot serve the purpose for which it was built--to
bring the people of the Kinsman Road and Jackowo neighborhoods
together for their mutual commercial and general welfare. And until
that happens, it will remain a symbol of the mid to late twentieth
century troubles that separated these two Cleveland neighborhoods
and a reminder that they have perhaps not yet bridged that gap.

The southeast anchor of Cleveland’s most prominent downtown
intersection is a work of art that—in the true spirit of
capitalism—began with a competition. In 1903, the Cleveland Trust
Company (established in 1894 with $500,000 in capital) merged with
the Western Reserve Trust Company. The combined entity could not
function effectively in rented office spaces, so it launched a
contest to decide who would design a new headquarters. The winner
was George Browne Post, a renowned architect who had previously
designed the home of the New York Stock Exchange. Post may have
been the 19th century’s king of “architectural firsts.” The
Equitable Life Assurance Society in New York, which he designed in
1868, was the first office building to use elevators. Post’s
Western Union Telegraph Building (1872) was the first office
building to reach ten stories. And upon its completion in 1890,
Post’s 20-story New York World Building (also known as the Pulitzer
Building) was the city’s tallest structure.

Here, Post’s winning design became the Cleveland Trust Company
Building. Completed in 1908, it remained a banking cornerstone for
88 years. In 1919 the bank unveiled a plan to add an 11-story tower
atop Post's original building, but it took another half century
before a major expansion occurred–this time in the form of an
adjacent 29-story tower designed by Brutalist architect Marcel
Breuer. The late-1960s plan actually called for twin towers framing
the old rotunda, but the second tower was never built. By 1977,
Cleveland Trust had 120 branches and $5 billion in assets. By 1987,
the entity now known as AmeriTrust was the eighteenth largest bank
in America. However, the collapse of the real estate market in the
late 1980s hurt the institution badly and, in 1991, AmeriTrust
accepted a buyout bid from Society Corporation (now Key Bank). The
complex, including the adjacent tower, thus became superfluous and
closed in 1996. It remained shuttered for almost two decades,
emblematic of fading, neglected cities everywhere and a victim of
poor management decisions by its overseers: the commissioners of
Cuyahoga County.

Through all its changes, the building’s glorious exterior (three
stories of white granite facing) and marble interior rotunda
survived largely intact. According to The Guide to Cleveland
Architecture, “The central pediment displays sculptures by
Karl Bitter, which depict, allegorically, the primary sources of
wealth in the United States (land and water) with their concomitant
occupations: industrial labor, agriculture, mining, commerce,
navigation and fishery. The interior of the rotunda features a
dome, 85 feet high, with Tiffany-style glass panels 61 feet in
diameter. The fluted columns, Corinthian pilasters, bronze doorways
and grilles, marble floors and walls are reminiscent of the Italian
Renaissance.” High above the main floor are a series of 13 murals
created by Francis Davis Millet, an American painter, sculptor and
writer. Entitled “Pioneer and Discovery,” the panels chronicle
America’s colonization, cultivation and development. Each panel
measures 5 x 16 feet.

The building’s business accoutrements may not be works of art,
but they are nonetheless impressive. The safe deposit vault was
built of 200 tons of metal encased in eighteen inches of concrete.
The vault’s door weighed seventeen tons. The facility also had a
“telautograph,” which could copy a message in one part of the
building at the same time the original message was being
written.

The Cleveland Trust Company Building’s current incarnation began
in 2013, when Geis Companies purchased the structure, along with
the adjacent tower, which they converted into a hotel and
apartments. Cleveland-based grocery store chain owners Tom and Jeff
Heinen then invested $10 million to transform the bank rotunda, and
an adjoining building at 1010 Euclid Avenue, into a
27,000-square-foot supermarket, which opened its doors on February
25, 2015. The first floor of the rotunda houses the deli, bakery,
meat and seafood, and prepared foods departments, and includes a
seating area where patrons can enjoy their food. The second floor
houses beer and wine departments where patrons can try samples.
Seats throughout this level provide excellent views of Millet’s
masterpieces. The 1010 Euclid Avenue portion of the store contains
produce and packaged and frozen foods.

The Heinen’s remake of the Cleveland Trust Company Building has
catalyzed a resumption of the importance of Euclid-East 9th
intersection. However, rather than being the heart of the financial
district with banks on three of four corners, the intersection now
has three of its four corners directed toward lifestyles: in
addition to Heinen’s transformation of Cleveland Trust into a
flagship supermarket, a hotel occupies the old Scofield Building,
and luxury apartments are in development in the old Union Commerce
Bank Building.

Amadeus Rappe was Cleveland's first Roman Catholic Bishop. He was
born and ordained in France during the first half of the nineteenth
century and recruited to serve in the United States in 1840 by
Cincinnati, Ohio, Bishop John Purcell. He led the St. Francis
DeSales parish in Toledo until 1847 when the Vatican created the
Cleveland Diocese and appointed him Bishop. One of Bishop Rappe's
first initiatives was to provide a 'downtown' church for the
region's growing Catholic population and to initiate efforts to
erect a Cathedral for the new diocese. He began both efforts
simultaneously on land acquired by Father Peter McLaughlin, the
pastor of Cleveland's existing Catholic parish, St. Mary of the
Flats. The property is at the corner of Erie (East 9th) and
Superior streets, Cleveland's eastern boundary at the time. A frame
chapel, the Church of the Nativity, was consecrated on Christmas
Day, 1848, while construction of the Cathedral of St. John the
Evangelist was already begun on adjacent land facing Erie Street.
During these early years, the Church of the Nativity would be
utilized daily as a school, emphasizing the importance of Catholic
education that Bishop Rappe championed.

Construction of the Cathedral continued while the bishop sought
funding in the United States and Europe to complete the project.
The brick structure in ornamental Gothic style was designed by
Patrick Keely, a noted Catholic church architect, and featured
interior columns, delicate stained-glass windows, and a stucco
finish. The handcut wood altar came from France. The exterior
featured buttresses and pinnacles in the Gothic tradition. The
Cathedral was consecrated on November 7, 1852, by Bishop Purcell of
Cincinnati who praised the growth and ambition of the Cleveland
Catholic community. Cleveland's cathedral also served as a parish
for local residents with an appointed pastor. St. John's maintains
that role today.

Schools for boys and girls were added, respectively, in 1857 and
1867 on the property and a separate residence facing Superior
Avenue for the Bishop of Cleveland was added in the 1870s. Exterior
and interior renovations commenced in 1874. A steeple and spire
were added while sandstone facing was completed. By 1884 a thorough
interior renovation which included stained-glass windows and black
walnut furnishings in the sanctuary was completed and in 1888, a
new Cathedral school was built. The boys were taught by the
Brothers of Mary, while the Ursuline Sisters continued to educate
the girls.

In 1927, the Cathedral was redecorated and the crypt was
rmodified and rededicated to hold the relics of St. Christine and
the remains of Cleveland's deceased bishops. Also, the high school
division of the Cathedral school had been phased out, and the newly
organized Sisters' College (later called St. John's College), for
teacher preparation, moved into the school space in 1928.

The Cathedral shared in one of the greatest events in the
history of the Diocese when the Seventh National Eucharistic
Congress was held in Cleveland in 1935. Thousands of people from
throughout the United States and the around world came
to Cleveland to adore and pledge their fidelity to Our Lord present
in the Eucharist.

The Cathedral was again extensively refurbished and enlarged
between 1946 and 1948 under the direction of Bishop Edward F. Hoban
in celebration of its centennial. The firm of Stickle, Kelly and
Stickle served as the architects with interior work by the local
firm of John W. Winterich and Associates. The original brick
exterior was replaced with Tennessee crab-orchard sandstone. The
existing tower and transepts were removed and a new tower
constructed. Interior colored marbles and oak woodwork complemented
the original decor. The newly rebuilt Cathedral was consecrated
on September 4, 1948.

In 1977, yet another phase of Cathedral renovation began. In
response to the mandates of the Second Vatican Council, the
Cathedral's sanctuary was again redesigned and the main altar moved
forward to the same location it occupied in the Cathedral of the
1850s. In 1988, six real bells for the Cathedral's tower were
installed and rang for the first time on Christmas Eve.

Victoria and Michael Sokolowski opened Sokolowski’s University Inn
in 1923 as a tavern at the corner of University Road and West 13th
Street. Today it is still run by the same family: grandchildren
Mike, Mary and Bernie Sokolowski. It still serves exceedingly
generous portions of traditional Polish-style food. And it’s still
a popular spot for generations of visitors from every walk of life.
Local heroes from steel workers to accountants. Hollywood types
from Ursula Andress to Jimmy Fallon. Politicos from Lech Walesa to
Bill Clinton. Rock ‘n rollers from Dion DiMucci to Trent Reznor.
Celebrity chefs from Bobby Flay to, of course, Michael Symon.

When Sokolowski’s opened its doors, Tremont was rather different
from the gentrifying neighborhood it is today. For one thing, the
area was called the South Side. Only 30 years earlier, it had been
Lincoln Heights. The neighborhood also was more densely populated.
Poles rubbed shoulders with Ukrainians, Russians, and a host of
other nationalities. Large families in small houses were the norm.
Residents availed themselves of local churches and local schools.
Plus there were many more houses than today: Construction of
Interstates 71, 90 and 490 resulted in the loss of hundreds of
residential structures. In fact, when Sokolowski’s opened, homes
along University Road rimmed the Flats as far west as West 14th
Street. Homes also lined both sides of West 14th as far north as
University. Abbey Avenue stopped at West 14th instead of West 11th.
On the south side of Abbey in 1923—just up from Sokolowski’s—there
was a stable. Directly across Abbey from the stable there was a
Horse and Dog Hospital.

The most dramatic evolution may be Sokolowski’s expansion from
bar to full restaurant. Ironically, the freeway that lopped off the
tavern's neighbors to the west also turned Sokolowski's into its
modern form. It wasn’t until the late 1950s—when iron workers
building the Inner Belt bridge started coming in at lunchtime—that
the family began serving cafeteria-style food. The establishment
expanded over the years, including the addition of three new dining
rooms. Current owners Mike, Mary and Bernie grew up in the business
and lived next door.

In 2014, Sokolowski’s won the James Beard “American Classics”
Award—one of only five designations the prestigious New York-based
foundation makes each year. According to a Beard spokesperson,
“honorees represent the unique American dream of people who have
created enduring, quality restaurants and food establishments that
reflect the character and hospitality of their cities and
communities.” “It's like winning the Oscar,” observed Mike
Sokolowski. Sokolowski’s also has appeared on Michael Symon’s “The
Best Thing I Ever Ate” on the Food Network and Anthony Bourdain’s
“No Reservations” on the Travel Channel.

So what new heights can be reached after winning awards,
appearing on national television and filling the bellies of untold
thousands of locals and visitors over 90+ years? On the one hand,
the Sokolowskis are certain to continue doing what they’ve always
done: entertain customers with great food and drink. However,
there’s another big event in the restaurant’s future. By 2018,
Canalway Partners, the City of Cleveland, Cuyahoga County and the
Cleveland Metroparks will complete the Towpath Trail Extension,
which will briefly exit the Flats in Tremont directly in front of
Sokolowski’s. University Avenue will close to auto traffic and
become a footpath. New green spaces and scenic overlooks will be
constructed. And Sokolowski’s University Inn will have the honor of
introducing its unique fare to an expanded cadre of happy hikers.
Zjeść obfite (Polish for “eat hearty”)!

The Episcopal congregation of St. Paul's in Cleveland made its
third stop on its eastbound journey at the southeast corner of Case
Avenue (East 40th Street) and Euclid Avenue in 1876. Founded in
1846 at the American House Hotel at Superior Avenue and West 6th
Street, St. Paul's held services in rented rooms until it completed
a frame church at Sheriff (East 4th Street) and Euclid Avenue. In
1851 St. Paul's built a brick Gothic church on the same site that
served the congregation until 1876, when prominent members
convinced church officials to build on the site further east on
Euclid Avenue in the middle of Millionaires' Row.

The new Victorian Gothic structure was designed by architect
Gordon Lloyd of Detroit and built by Andrew Dall of Cleveland.
Berea sandstone was used to complete the cruciform plan with a
120-foot bell tower complete with exaggerated turrets and
pinnacles. The interior features decorative wood trusses in an
inverted ship's keel style and Tiffany stained-glass windows.
Neighbors' homes at the intersection included John D. Rockefeller
on the southwest corner and Jeptha H. Wade and Sylvester T. Everett
on the north side of Euclid.

The first service in the new St. Paul's was held on Christmas
Eve, 1876, where the city's aristocracy would come to worship.
Notable socially prominent patron services were routine at St.
Paul's including weddings and the funeral of Marcus Hanna attended
by President Theodore Roosevelt. St. Paul's tower bell tolled to
summon Cleveland's nabobs to services but the sound proved too much
for some neighbors. "Some arrangement was made," wrote reporter S.
J. Kelly of the Plain Dealer, in which an annual $100 contribution
to the church would silence the bell for more than 15 years. In
1902, an enthusiastic bridegroom handed the janitor five dollars
and the bell pealed thereafter!

The church served the congregation for 52 years until it moved
again eastward to Cleveland Heights. St. Paul's sold its
magnificent building to the Cleveland Catholic Diocese which
re-dedicated it as the Shrine of the Conversion of St. Paul on
October 2, 1931. In 1932 a convent was built on the grounds and
Cleveland Bishop Joseph Schrembs invited the Franciscan Order of
the Poor Clare nuns, a group that had come to Cleveland about a
decade before from Austria, to establish the devotion of Perpetual
Adoration and to "pray for the needs of the city" at St. Paul, a
devotion which continues today. The millionaire neighborhood
dissolved in the 1930s and St. Paul Shrine assumed various
ministries during its ensuing 85 years as a Catholic
institution.

The neighborhood surrounding the former Millionaires' Row was
heavily populated during and after World War II, and the Shrine
drew many worshipers to its services. In 1949, the Diocese declared
St. Paul a parish to serve the community north and south of Euclid
Avenue. In the early 1950s, many Puerto Rican migrants arriving in
Cleveland were drawn to St. Paul's by Fr. Thomas Sebian, a
Spanish-speaking priest in residence there. Along with Our Lady of
Fatima Parish in Hough, St. Paul Shrine contributed to the
expansion of the Puerto Rican community on the East Side before
many Puerto Ricans re-centered on the Near West Side in the 1960s.
The St. Paul Shrine congregation peaked in 1978 with more than 700
members, who represented a diversity of people. Continued change in
the neighborhood brought varied worshipers while St Paul's
maintained its vibrancy as a "way station for shorter term
parishioners" and a place for those struggling with addictions or
homelessness. St. Paul's welcomed the gay community and other
marginalized communities to its services, leading one close
observer to liken it to the "Island of Misfit Toys."

The Shrine of the Conversion of St. Paul was decommissioned as a
parish in 2008 yet remains a Shrine for Perpetual Adoration of the
Blessed Sacrament and a destination for faithful from around the
city and the world. In fact, some of its nuns, trained through St.
Paul's missions to India, are now cloistered at St. Paul's. The
Shrine of the Conversion of St. Paul remains an anchor on Euclid
Avenue drawing worshipers from millionaires to the homeless.

For decades, visitors to Tremont have wondered about the three
magnificent, but sadly dilapidated, mansions they encounter when
exiting Interstate 90 at Abbey Avenue and West 14th Street. What
are (or were) these structures? Why have buildings in such a
high-profile location been so neglected? What plans (if any) exist
for their regeneration?

The answer to these questions reaches back to the late 19th
century. At that time, Tremont (then known as Lincoln Heights) was
home to scores of wealthy industrialists, and Jennings Avenue
(renamed West 14th Street in 1906) was their street of choice—a
sort of south-side Millionaire's Row, not unlike Euclid or Franklin
Avenues.

Just north of Fairfield Avenue, two of Jennings Avenue’s most
majestic homes belonged to Samuel Sessions and brothers Thomas and
Isaac Lamson, founders of the Lamson & Sessions Company. In
1912, The Pan-Hellenic Union purchased and razed these houses, and
subsequently erected Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, which
stands to this day. However, most of the block to the south (across
Fairfield Avenue) also was owned by Sessions and the Lamson
brothers; and two of the structures in this area are among those
noted at the beginning of this article: the Olney Residence (2255
West 14th Street) and the Olney Gallery (2241 West 14th
Street).

Meant from the start to be an exhibition space, the Olney
Gallery was built in 1892 for Charles Fayette Olney, an art
collector and academic who came to Cleveland from New York City in
the 1880s. This handsome Renaissance Revival building (with “Olney
Art Gallery” etched in stone above the front portico) was created
to display Olney’s extensive collection of oil and watercolor
paintings, ivories, porcelains, statuary and bronzes. The building
was designed by the firm of Forrest A. Coburn and Frank Seymour
Barnum, which also created more than twenty houses along Euclid
Avenue’s Millionaires’ Row, as well as several buildings for Case
Institute of Technology and Western Reserve University. Physically
adjoining the Gallery to the south is the giant 1870s Victorian
mansion that Olney and his wife Abigail Bradley Lamson, the widow
of Lamson & Sessions founder Thomas Lamson, occupied after they
married in 1887. The Olneys became major benefactors of Pilgrim
Church, which opened its doors at Starkweather Avenue and West 14th
Street in 1894.

When the Olney Art Gallery opened in 1893, it became the city’s
first publicly accessible art space, pre-dating the Cleveland
Museum of Art by more than two decades. More than 200 objects from
the Olney’s private collection populated the gallery. Other
prominent Clevelanders, such as Windsor White and Charles Brush,
also donated works. Charles and Abigail Olney died in 1903 and
1904, respectively. The Olney Gallery closed in 1907, and most of
its inventory was donated to Oberlin College, where it became the
foundation of the Dudley Allen Memorial Art Museum.

Soon after, the two structures were sold to the
American-Ukrainian National Company for $45,000. Ukrainians had
been coming to America since the 1870s, and by the 1880s many had
settled in the Tremont area. So great was the surge that the need
for worship and meeting space became acute. In fact, the city’s
first Ukrainian Catholic parish, organized in Tremont in 1902, was
headquartered in a former trolley garage. These critical needs
weren’t met until the Olney Residence and Gallery were acquired in
1909 and a new house of worship—Saints Peter & Paul Church at
2280 West 7th Street—was built the following year.

A short walk from Saints Peter & Paul, the newly acquired
Ukrainian National Home filled a variety of needs—organizing
educational, social and recreational events; hosting union
meetings; and serving as a temporary refuge for the Ukrainian
political émigrés and displaced persons who came to Cleveland
following World War II. By the 1960s, however, much of the
Ukrainian community had moved to Parma and other western suburbs
and the Ukrainian National Home closed in 1967. Still, the area
continues to maintain a strong Ukrainian presence, primarily in the
form of Saints Peter & Paul Church and the widely renowned
Ukrainian Museum-Archives around the corner at 1202 Kenilworth
Avenue. Reflecting the changing nature of Tremont’s community, the
two Olney buildings later became a Puerto Rican social hall.

Since 1990, nearby Grace Hospital has owned the buildings and,
aided by a large historic preservation grant in 2015, undertook
their renovation, along with a third, somewhat smaller structure,
the Higbee House, to the immediate south. (It does not appear that
this home was ever occupied by Edwin Converse Higbee, the founder
of Higbee’s Department Store, but the building may have housed a
relative.) In September 2015, Tremont West Development Corporation
obtained a $750,000 grant under a federal “food desert” program to
help turn the former Olney Gallery into a Constantino’s grocery
store. As of this writing, plans for the former Olney and Higbee
residences remained unclear.

On August 19, 1894, Immaculate Heart of Mary Church opened its
doors for the first time to its congregation, all of whom had been
recently excommunicated from the Catholic Church by the Bishop of
Cleveland. Excommunication did not bother the ethnic Polish
parishioners attending Immaculate Heart of Mary Church because the
opening of an independent Polish-American church was a triumph they
had waited years to achieve.

In the early 1890s, parishioners of the Polish Catholic Church,
St. Stanislaus, became unhappy with the role of the Diocese of
Cleveland in their religious affairs. Members of the congregation,
led by Father Anton Francis Kolaszewski, demanded that St.
Stanislaus should have a more autonomous role in the diocese as a
separate Polish church. The congregation wanted to be able to
select its own pastors, parish leaders, and manage church finances
independently. Because the congregants were Polish, they did not
feel comfortable being managed by an American diocese, and wanted
church business to operate in a more ethnically and culturally
sensitive manner. The Bishop of Cleveland, Frederick Horstmann,
refused. Despite this rejection, Fr. Kolaszewski continued to
preach his desire for an independent Polish church. In 1892,
frustrated by Kolaszewski’s refusal to accept the authority of the
Diocese and accusations of sexual abuse against him, Horstmann
forced Kolaszewski to resign as pastor of St. Stanislaus.

Many supporters of Kolaszewski’s and an independent Polish
catholic church met this decision with indignation. When the new
pastor Benedict Rosinski arrived at St. Stanislaus to assume his
duties, members of the parish greeted him with their broomsticks;
they wanted Kolaszewski to continue as pastor and pursue a more
independent Polish Catholic Church, and Rosinski represented a
departure from that rhetoric. As news of the conflict spread
throughout the Warszawa neighborhood, rival supporters of both the
diocese and Kolaszewski arrived on the scene to participate in the
brawl.

While violent scenes like the one that greeted pastor Rosinski
did not occur with regularity, the Polish community continued to
request permission to form an independent church from Bishop
Horstmann. Again, Horstmann refused those requests. In early 1894,
after two years of consistent denial, the St. Stanislaus
parishioners called upon Pastor Kolaszewski to return to Cleveland.
Kolaszewski returned to assist the community in fundraising and
other planning related to the construction of the new, independent
Polish-American Catholic Church. Despite threats of excommunication
from Bishop Horstmann, Immaculate Heart of Mary opened its doors to
parishioners later that year.

Immaculate Heart of Mary’s parishioners remained outsiders until
both Kolaszewski and Horstmann died several years later. After both
of their deaths, the Diocese of Cleveland accepted the church into
its diocese and it continued as a regular member of the church
district.

When Poles discuss the conflict today, they often characterize
as a conflict between the diocese and Kolaszewski, rather than a
major fracture in the social structure of Warszawa. This
distinction is important, as the memories of the conflict passed
down reflect a struggle of authority and a demagogue, rather than
one that divided a community.

The story of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church illustrates two
major themes of immigrant Polish life: the importance of religion
to Poles and the desire for an independent Polish-American
rhetoric. Polish communities across the United States participated
in squabbles over church ownership, resulting in myriads of
independent Polish churches. The church's providing the grounds for
this kind of conflict is also significant as it blatantly displays
how central the church was and is to Polish life. Poles wanted
independent control in their churches because in Polish
communities, the church not only provides religious support, but
also social and educational support. Control over their own
churches therefore meant greater control over all aspects of life
in a Polish community.

As you drive west on Franklin Boulevard, between West 58th and West
65th Streets, it is surprisingly easy to miss the house at 6016
Franklin, despite its high pitched roof, its multiplicity of
windows, dormers and entrances, its towers and other interesting
architectural details, and despite the fact that it is one of the
largest houses in the neighborhood. Situated on the north side of
the street between two more noticeable brick apartment buildings,
you might just unknowingly pass by it. But you shouldn't. It was
once the home of one of Cleveland's most prominent nineteenth
century architects, and it is worth the time to stop and admire.
And, see if you can discern the Latin inscription on the house's
gable. It seems to sum up the architect's beliefs about family and
religion.

Forrest A. Coburn, the designer and original owner of the house
at 6016 Franklin Boulevard, was born in Lowell, Massachusetts in
1848. When he was 14 years old, his family moved to the Cleveland
area, initially settling on Coe Ridge (Lorain) Road in Rockport
Township, but later moving to the west side of Cleveland. In 1866,
at age 18, Coburn entered the work force as a bookkeeper, but soon
found his life work when in 1868 he was hired to be a draftsman in
the downtown offices of Joseph Ireland, one of Cleveland's great
early architects. Coburn worked for Ireland, and later Walter
Blythe--another important early Cleveland architect, until 1873,
when he left town to study architecture in New York. In 1875, he
returned here an architect, working at first in Blythe's office,
but in 1878, leaving that employment to form a partnership with
Frank Seymour Barnum, who later became the architect for the
Cleveland School Board, designing many of the districts early
twentieth century school buildings.

Coburn and Barnum, which initially had offices in the Hardy
Block on Euclid Avenue--just a stone's throw from Public Square,
quickly became one of the city's best and most prolific
architectural firms. Perhaps most telling of how quickly the firm
rose to prominence was its selection, in 1881, to design the
catafalque for President James Garfield, when his body lay in state
at Monumental (Public) Square from September 24-26, before being
transported to and buried at Lake View Cemetery.

During the last two decades of the nineteenth century, according
to the records of the Cleveland Landmarks Commission, Coburn and
Barnum designed at least 143 buildings in the Cleveland area, a
number of them considered to be among the best designed in the city
during this era. One--the Blackstone Building, on the southwest
corner of Seneca (West 3rd) Street and Frankfort Avenue, which was
built in 1881 by Jacob Perkins and demolished in the early 1960s,
has been cited by one architectural historian as a leading example
of the work of the new class of post-Civil War architects in
Cleveland who, in the last several decades of the nineteenth
century, produced some of the city's grandest downtown
buildings.

The firm was also known for its residential designs. It designed
20 of the mansions on Millionaires' Row, including the Howe
Mansion, which today is located on the campus of Cleveland State
University and known as Parker Hannifin Hall. The firm also
designed a number of houses and churches on the west side of
Cleveland that are still standing, including the Spitzer House at
2830 Franklin Boulevard, the Sarah Bousfield ("Stone Gables") House
at 3806 Franklin Boulevard, the George Warmington Duplex at 4906-08
Franklin Boulevard, the John Pankhurst House at 3206-08 Clinton
Avenue, the Thomas Axworthy Houses at 3802 and 3804 Clinton Avenue,
and Olivet Baptist Church at 5022 Bridge Avenue. The firm also
designed a number of cultural institution buildings in University
Circle and elsewhere, including the still-standing Olney Art
Gallery on West 14th Street in Tremont.

The influence of Forrest Coburn extended, however, far beyond
the nineteenth century Cleveland area buildings that he designed.
Two of the architects in his office, Walter Hubbell and Czech
immigrant W. Dominick Benes, after Coburn's death, started their
own firm--Hubbell and Benes, which designed a number of Cleveland's
best known early twentieth century buildings, among them the West
Side Market (1907-1910) and the Cleveland Museum of Art (1917).
Another architect in the office, John H. Edelman, later moved to
Chicago and became the mentor of a young Louis Sulllivan, the
architect who would eventually become known to the world as the
father of the American skyscraper.

For much of his early career, Forrest Coburn had lived in a
simple house at 86 Root (1901 West 47th) Street, but in 1887 he
purchased several lots on Franklin Boulevard and began drawing up
plans for the large house at 6016 Franklin Boulevard. Completed in
1890, the house was designed as a duplex, with the Coburn family
living in the larger "half" of the house, and the smaller "half"
rented out. Forrest Coburn lived in this house for only seven
years, dying--it was said-- from overwork in 1897 at the age of 49.
After his death, his widow and children continued to reside in the
house until 1912 when it was sold out of the family. In 1942, the
house was converted into a seven-suite apartment building, which it
remained as until 2002, when, after an extensive renovation, it was
converted into a four unit luxury condominium. It is now, once
again, one of the jewels of the Franklin-West Clinton Historic
District.

Even people who live nearby may not know about Duck Island. Among
suburbanites, the name is even less likely to resonate. What’s
more, if you do a Google Images search you’ll get pretty pictures
of an island off the cost of Maine. Some of these photos include
ducks, but none of them are Cleveland’s Duck Island.

So where is Duck Island and what does it have to do with ducks?
The answer to the first question is that Duck Island is a small
community (perhaps one square mile) between Tremont and Ohio City.
Bisected by Abbey Avenue, Duck Island is bordered by Carnegie
Avenue to the north, Train Avenue and Scranton Road to the south
and east, and the RTA Red Line rapid tracks to the west. For
municipal planning and management purposes, Duck Island is
considered part of Tremont. The answer to the second question is
that Duck Island has nothing whatsoever to do with ducks (although
you may see an occasional duck sign or banner). Most folks believe
that Duck Island got its name during Prohibition—a place where
bootleggers would “duck” the law.

But Duck Island’s profile is rising rapidly. In fact, it might
be hard to find a Cleveland locale whose popularity has increased
more swiftly. Plans are underway for large “ultra green” housing
developments at West 20th and Lorain; West 20th and Abbey; and West
19th and Freeman. Toney new homes dot Columbus Road and West 17th,
18th and 19th Streets. Abbey Park, located at the corner of West
19th Street and Smith Court is earmarked for a major facelift.
Gateway Clinic on Abbey Avenue has become a haven for quality pet
care. Several new breweries are on the books. And to the cheers of
myriad residents, St. Wendelin Catholic Church on Columbus Road
reopened its doors in 2012—two years after being closed by the
Catholic Dioceses of Cleveland.

To be sure, a number of residents are squeamish about Duck
Island’s burgeoning popularity. Concerns about inflation, noise,
parking and population density are common and largely valid.
Fortunately, organizations like Tremont West Development
Corporation, the Duck Island Block Club, the Duck Island
Development Collaborative, Cleveland Neighborhood Progress and Kent
State University’s Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative are working
hard to build figurative bridges. That’s a good thing because Duck
Island has become too hot to not trot: It’s equidistant between
Tremont and Ohio City; a short drive, train ride or walk to
downtown; and a hop/skip/jump to riverfront destinations like the
Towpath Trail, Scranton Peninsula and Merwin’s Wharf. Plus it has
killer views of the city.

Like Tremont and Ohio City, Duck Island is an old neighborhood.
Most of its original housing stock dates to the late 1800s. These
homes were inhabited primarily by blue-collar workers who staffed
steel mills, factories, warehouses and river-shipping interests in
the Flats. In fact, the geography of Duck Island is such that,
until the early 20th Century, Tremont residents could not walk
north or east without first descending into the Flats. In 1887,
however, the Central Viaduct, was constructed. Initially, the
Viaduct consisted of two bridges: The first structure (more than
one-half-mile long) extended from Jennings Ave. (now West 14th
Street) to Central Avenue (now Carnegie Avenue). It followed the
same basic path taken by what is now Interstate 90. Deemed unsafe,
the bridge was torn down in the early 1940s. The second
structure—the Abbey Avenue Bridge—continues to bind Tremont and
Ohio City, with Duck Island smack in the middle.

Even with the bridges, Duck Island retained most of its
isolated, blue collar status throughout the 20th Century. That
sense of sequestration was exacerbated by the fact that, over the
years, Duck Island was alternately claimed and disowned by Ohio
City and Tremont. In the mid 1920s, moreover, Duck Island became
even more isolated on the west when a deep trench was dug to
accommodate railroad tracks for passenger trains serving the new
Union Terminal complex. A half-dozen city blocks were removed—thus
separating Duck Island from Ohio City. The only bridge subsequently
erected to cross the divide was on Abbey Avenue.

Beginning in the 1970s, populations declined precipitously
throughout the area. Businesses closed and even fewer people than
usual wanted to move to a disadvantaged neighborhood with elderly
housing stock and close proximity to a downtown with little to
offer. However, Duck Island might have been rediscovered sooner,
were it not for residents’ extreme suspicions about redevelopment.
This mindset peaked in the 1990s, when residents staunchly opposed
any initiatives that smelled even vaguely of gentrification.
Rosemary Vinci, a community leader with a frequently ambiguous
agenda, urged residents to reduce density by acquiring neighboring
properties and demolishing dwellings. Vinci was a former strip club
manager who, at the time of her death in 2008, was being
investigated alongside her superiors, Jimmy Dimora and Frank Russo.
Vinci also led opposition to a development next to the West 25th
Street Station along Columbus Road south of Lorain. Rosemary’s
father, by the way, was James Vinci, reputed organized crime figure
and owner of the famed Diamond Jim's in the Flats.

Vinci or no Vinci, change is coming to Duck Island, including
the kind of mixed-income, high-density residential development
Rosemary so vociferously opposed. The plusses and minuses of urban
renaissance will continue to be debated, but Duck Island’s unified
wall of resistance is beginning to quack.

The film takes place in a fictional town called Hohman, Indiana.
Most exteriors were shot in Toronto. Interior scenes were done on a
stage set. But in every sense of the word (no, not the “fudge”
word) Ohio’s Tremont neighborhood is where Ralphie Parker and his
family experienced A Christmas Story.

3159 West 11th Street, just south of Clark Avenue, is A
Christmas Story House. Across the road is A Christmas Story Museum
and a gift shop. All three locations are open 365 days a year for
tours, along with a chance to buy everything from leg lamp
nightlights and pink bunny suits to Lifebuoy Soap and faux Red
Ryder carbine-action, two-hundred-shot, range-model air rifles. Be
careful not to shoot your eye out!

The house was built in 1895: a colonial-style home in an area
comprised largely of families whose men worked in the nearby Flats.
The Mittal Steel plant (formerly J&L and Republic Steel) can be
seen from the house’s back yard. The neighborhood’s arc mirrored
that of Tremont—clinging to working-class status for much of the
20th century and floundering in the 1960s and 1970s when suburban
flight and freeway construction desecrated the area. Spurred by
artists and urban pioneers, Tremont began its upswing several
decades later, but Ralphie’s neighborhood—well outside the borders
of “hip Tremont”—has remained solidly blue collar. According to
staff at the Christmas Story House, 3159’s basement used to host
many an illegal cockfight.

The fortunes of the house, and eventually the immediately
surrounding area, began to change in the early 1980s when director
Bob Clark began scouting for a location in which to set A Christmas
Story. Clark visited more than 20 cities looking for the perfect
house. Since a vintage department store was needed for the parade
and Santa-line scenes, Clark also sent letters to about 100
department stores around the country. Only Higbee’s in downtown
Cleveland responded, but that was okay because both the department
store and 3159 West 11th were ideal. Clark also liked the way the
Tremont neighborhood had looked in 1978’s The Deer Hunter. Local
auto club members lent Clark their antique cars. To thank the city,
the producers named the house’s fictional thoroughfare Cleveland
Street.

A mild sort of cinematic history was made in 1983 when A
Christmas Story was released. The film was marginally successful at
the outset, but its accolades and popularity increased over time.
Leonard Maltin gave the film four stars, calling it “delightful”
and “truly funny.” AOL, IGN, E! Entertainment, and at least one
viewer poll have cited A Christmas Story as the top holiday film of
all time. The movie earned Bob Clark two Genie Awards and in 2012,
A Christmas Story was selected by the Library of Congress for
preservation in the National Film Registry as being “culturally,
historically, or aesthetically significant.” Every year, TBS runs A
Christmas Story for 24 consecutive hours beginning on Christmas
Eve.

Twenty-one years after the film was released, entrepreneur Brian
M. Jones, a native of San Diego, bought the house on eBay for
$150,000. He used revenue from his business, The Red Rider Leg Lamp
Company, for the down payment. It was, in the words of Old Man
Parker, a “major award”: an opportunity to create a new kind of
museum in Cleveland. Watching the movie frame by frame, Jones drew
interior plans and spent $240,000 to reconfigure the structure as a
single-family dwelling and a near-perfect replica of the movie set.
Jones then stocked the interior with movie props. Entering the
house, visitors now are greeted by the infamous leg lamp, the
Parker’s decorated tree, a kitchen stocked with Ovaltine, and the
sink where Randy hid. Upstairs, they can see the bathroom where
Ralphie’s decoder ring and a bar of Lifebuoy soap reside. The back
yard, where several scenes were filmed, looks just like the movie.
Near the front entrance is a memorial bench dedicated to Clark. It
sits on the exact spot where he had a cameo as a nosy neighbor.

The house and museum opened to the public on November 25, 2006,
with original cast members attending the grand opening. The site
drew 4,300 visitors during its opening weekend, and tens of
thousands of faithful fans have made the pilgrimage since. Most
went because they, like many pundits and critics, believe that A
Christmas Story is one of Hollywood’s best. A few, however, may
have been “double-dog dared” to attend.

It was, in the first place, road and bridge improvements that
created the park--almost as an afterthought. For much of the first
two decades of the twentieth century, the city of Cleveland had
planned and then constructed Bulkley Boulevard (today, the west
Shoreway) and then the Detroit-Superior Bridge, thereby providing
more direct access for Clevelanders living on the east side to
travel to Edgewater Park on the west side. To address anticipated
congestion from traffic coming off the new bridge near West 25th
Street, the city purchased, and in 1917 razed, several buildings on
Detroit and Vermont Avenues, immediately west of West 25th, using
part of the cleared land to create a fan-shaped entrance way onto
Bulkley Boulevard. The land that was left over after the fan-shaped
entrance way had been created? Well, little thought was apparently
given to it until 1921, when near west side Councilman Michael H.
Gallagher came along and decided that the remnant land should be a
park serving as a memorial to Bernard "Brick" Masterson.

Gallagher, a Republican, had been elected Ward Eight
Councilman--the ward that then encompassed much of the near west
side, in 1917, defeating three-term incumbent Democrat, William J.
Horrigan. Gallagher owed much of his electoral success to Brick
Masterson, the Republican ward leader. Masterson, who also was
owner of a popular saloon at 1313 West 25th Street, was known on
the west side as "Mayor of the Angle"-- perhaps due to his success
in turning out the Republican vote in 1909, which contributed
significantly to the stunning defeat that year of Cleveland's most
famous mayor, Tom L. Johnson. Nine years after Johnson's defeat,
and just four months after he engineered Michael Gallagher's
remarkable victory in November 1917 over incumbent Councilman
Horrigan, the 44-year old Masterson tragically died in 1918 from a
fall he suffered on St. Patrick's Day.

While other politicians likely forgot the colorful ward leader
soon after his very public funeral, Councilman Gallagher did not.
In 1921, several years after the entrance way to Boulkley Boulevard
at West 25th and Detroit had been created, he successfully
sponsored legislation to make that small leftover piece of land a
park named "Masterson Square." And while some may have poked fun at
the little park, as the Plain Dealer did in an article published in
1926, for decades Masterson Square served as a gathering place for
community events in the historically Irish Old Angle neighborhood.
As late as 1944, it was the site of a gala fundraising event for
the new memorial chapel at nearby St. Malachi Catholic Church. And
then, apparently, as time passed, and the ethnic composition of the
neighborhood changed, the park lost its public identity as a
memorial to Brick Masterson.

In the year 2000, eight decades after the park had been first
named as the result of one Cleveland councilman's efforts, another
Cleveland councilman came along-- Ward 14's Nelson Cintron, who
decided that it would be a great idea to honor boxing great Jimmy
Bivins by naming the park--which was by this time apparently only
known to city officials as the "Detroit-West 25th Street park,"
after him.

James Louis "Jimmy" Bivins, an African American whose family
moved from Georgia to Cleveland in 1921 during the Great Migration,
was one of the city's best boxers ever, fighting both as a light
heavyweight and as a heavyweight. His professional career lasted
from 1940 to 1955, during which time he amassed a record of
86-25-1. During the years of World War II, he won the "duration"
championship--awarded when Joe Lewis and others were away in the
service , both in the light heavyweight and heavyweight classes.
Bivins retired from boxing in 1955, but afterwards he became a
trainer at the Old Angle Gym, which for many years was located in
the Campbell Block, a building catty-corner across the street from
Masterson Square. There, Bivins not only trained young men--many of
whom came from impoverished areas of the near west side, but he
also became a partner in the operation of the gym, contributing his
money as well as his time to keeping the gym going, at a time when
many Cleveland boxing gym owners were hanging up their gloves for
good. After the Campbell Block was torn down in 1975, Bivins moved
the gym first to the West Side Community House at West 30th Street
and Bridge Avenue, and then in 1978 to St. Malachi School, where he
taught boxing to kids there until 1996 when old age and personal
tragedy ended his career as a trainer.

On October 4, 2000, Cleveland City Council passed Councilman
Cintron's sponsored legislation to name the little park at the
corner of West 25th and Detroit Avenue "Jimmy Bivins Park." But no
plaque or other signage was ever put up to identify the park. And
so it remained for fifteen years until 2015, when a redevelopment
proposal came before the City that included the land upon which the
park was located. During the redevelopment review process, the City
not only learned that the proposal included land that was a city
park, but also that the park had been named on two different
occasions in honor of two different legendary Clevelanders. City
officials are now considering the possibility of upgrading the
park, and, hopefully, once and for all, resolving its name.

Fairmont Creamery Company was founded in Fairmont, Nebraska, near
Omaha, in 1884—an early “national dairy” with operations stretching
from the Dakotas to Buffalo, New York. Fairmont was a pioneer in
milk can pickup and one of the first creameries to provide farmers
with their own hand-operated cream separators. In 1948 the company
was re-branded as Fairmont Foods. It also became a Fortune 500
company and was granted a seat on the New York Stock Exchange in
1959.

Fairmont Creamery’s Cleveland operation opened in 1930 in a
five-story building at 2306 West 17th Street, directly across
Willey Avenue from what is now the Animal Protective League.
Designed with two floors of manufacturing space and room for 75
delivery trucks, the facility also could accommodate railcar
delivery input and output through its lower floor receiving room.
For decades, a variety of dairy products were processed and
distributed at the Cleveland facility. Local residents bought ice
cream cones at a retail window. Employees from Tremont and Ohio
City enjoyed short walks to work.

In the early 1980s all of Fairmont Foods’ properties and
subsidiaries were either sold or closed, including the Cleveland
operation. The West 17th Street building stayed largely empty for
roughly 30 years, save for a small nickel-chrome-plating business
that worked out of the basement. Dust, debris and an occasional
squatter were all that occupied the remaining spaces.

In 2013, a trio of aggressive young developers—recent graduates
of Oberlin College—stepped in and brought new life to the old
building. Ben Ezinga, Josh Rosen and Naomi Sabe, founders of
Sustainable Community Architects, purchased the building for
$450,000. Comprising federal New Markets Tax Credits; state and
federal historic preservation tax credits; a JobsOhio grant; city
vacant property initiative funds; private equity investment; and a
Goldman Sachs construction loan, $15 million was poured into a
residential/commercial renovation, which was completed in 2015. The
repurposed creamery includes 30 apartments and several ground-floor
businesses.

Sustainable Community Architects worked to retain and celebrate
the building’s history. Walk-in coolers were transformed into
bedrooms and gym locker rooms. Huge concrete columns and beams,
along with brick interior walls (originally glazed for food safety)
became interior highlights. Windows, doors and signs were rebuilt
in the 1930s style. According to Josh Rosen “the building is a
reminder that people make stuff in this city; we wanted to expose
the building’s original features rather than hide them.”

At the same time, the property also incorporates the best of the
new. Natural light permeates living spaces. Each apartment has a
unique design and layout. A 3,500-square-foot rooftop deck offers a
place to lounge, garden, picnic and enjoy panoramic views of
downtown Cleveland. However, the best juxtaposition of old and new
may be that Fairmont Creamery is concurrently a Cleveland Landmark
and a site on the National Register of Historic Places, and
conforms to modern eco-friendly standards such as Leadership in
Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and Enterprise Green
Communities.

Boxing in the Old Angle, an historic Irish neighborhood located on
Cleveland's near west side, has deep roots, reaching back at least
as far as the year 1894 when Brother Salpicious of the Christian
Brothers of the La Salle Order founded the La Salle Literary and
Athletic Club at St. Malachi school for boys on the corner of Pearl
Street (West 25th) and Division Avenue. The Club encouraged boys
attending St. Malachi to engage in a number of sports, including
boxing. It achieved national attention in 1912 when it sponsored
the St. Patrick's Day parade in Cleveland, featuring new
featherweight boxing champion Johnny Kilbane, who had learned to
box at the La Salle Club in the first decade of the twentieth
century.

As young school boys who trained at the La Salle Club grew
older, other, more professional places were needed to provide
continued training in the sport of boxing. Johnny Kilbane, and
others like Tommy Kilbane (no relation), Tommy (later "Black Jack")
McGinty, and "Young Brick" Masterson, at first often had to travel
out of the Old Angle neighborhood to places like Volk's Gymnasium
downtown on Prospect Avenue to train. But in 1910, that changed
when Jimmy Dunn, legendary trainer of Johnny Kilbane and other
early twentieth century fighters, opened his first professional gym
in the Angle neighborhood at 2618 Detroit Avenue--just a block west
of the intersection of West 25th Street and Detroit. According to
an article which appeared that year in the Plain Dealer, Dunn's new
establishment was "fitted up as completely as any gym in the city."
Johnny Kilbane was training out of Dunn's Gym at 2618 Detroit when
he won his featherweight boxing crown in 1912.

Other gyms sprouted up in the neighborhood, and elsewhere, as
the sport of boxing--thanks in large part to Johnny Kilbane's fame,
became more popular in Cleveland in the 1920s and was viewed as a
way to climb out of poverty, despite official discouragement of the
sport from City Hall. Jimmy Dunn's Gym at 2618 Detroit saw a
succession of new owners, including Tommy "Black Jack" McGinty, the
Frisco Club and others, including former boxer Bryan Downey who,
around 1930 closed the gym at this location and opened a new one
downtown on Superior. Danny Dunn (a cousin of Jimmy Dunn), who for
a short time managed the gym his cousin had founded, opened his own
gym just up the street at 2816 Detroit in 1926. It became a
neighborhood fixture for over a decade, training many boxers, until
it closed around 1941. Its most well-known boxer was Johnny Risko,
a Slovak immigrant and heavyweight boxer, who trained at the gym in
the decades of the 1920s and 1930s when he was one of the top
contenders in the United States for the heavyweight crown.

Shortly after Danny Dunn's gym closed, as well as Bryan Downey's
downtown in the same year, a movement appears to have begun in 1943
to bring a boxing gymnasium back to the Old Angle. Prominent among
the people involved in the movement was John A. Keough, a third
generation Irish-American born in the Angle neighborhood, whose son
John M. "Jackie" Keough, a welterweight, was one of the top boxers
in Cleveland in the 1940s. In or about 1943, Keough opened a gym in
two rooms and an allotted basement area of the Campbell Block, an
historic building erected in 1891 by Alexander Campbell, the
grandfather of another famed fighter--Admiral Isaac Campbell Kidd,
who went down fighting on the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor on
December 7, 1941. Located near St. Malachi Church and just a block
north of the intersection of West 25th and Detroit Avenue, it was
named the "Old Angle" gym, according to one source, by former
boxing champion Johnny Kilbane.

For much of the next three decades, the Old Angle Gym was THE
place to train on the west side of Cleveland. One of the boxers
attracted to the new gym was James Louis "Jimmy" Bivins, an African
American, whose family moved to Cleveland from Georgia in 1921 when
he was just two years old. Bivins fought as both a light
heavyweight and heavyweight, winning the "duration" title in both
weight classes during World War II. After retiring from boxing in
1955, Bivins returned to the Old Angle gym to become a trainer,
introducing a whole new generation of kids living in the
neighborhood to the "sweet science," including bantamweight Gary
Horvath, who won multiple Golden Gloves championships in the decade
of the 1960s. Later, after Keough and his partners retired from
management of the gym, Bivins and Horvath took over, operating the
Old Angle Gym out of the Campbell Block until that building was
torn down in 1975. Afterwards, the two operated a boxing gym for
several years in the West Side Community Center at West 30th Street
and Bridge Avenue, and then Bivins opened up a boxing gym at St.
Malachi Church--where it all started, for neighborhood youths in
1979, running it until the mid 1990s.

In the year 2000, in recognition of the contributions which
Jimmy Bivins made to the community both as a legendary boxer and as
a trainer of young boxers on the near west side, the City of
Cleveland, figuratively speaking, returned to the historic
intersection of West 25th Street and Detroit Avenue, passing
legislation to name the little park on the northwest corner of that
intersection "Jimmy Bivins Park." Unknown to city officials at the
time, the same park had eighty years earlier been dedicated as a
memorial to Bernard "Brick" Masterson, a popular near west side
ward leader, who was also associated with the sport of boxing--as a
member of the historic La Salle club and as the father of a
promising young boxer who, in the early days, trained with Johnny
Kilbane in Jimmy Dunn's gym on Detroit Avenue. No matter the
inadvertent slight to "Brick." Had he been alive to witness the
renaming of his park, he probably would have been honored to share
it with a man like Bivins. It would be entirely in keeping with
history and tradition at this epicenter of boxing in Cleveland.

The Campbell Block was for many years one of the most recognizable
buildings in the Old Angle neighborhood on Cleveland's near west
side. It was actually at one time two separate buildings located
just east of Pearl (West 25th) Street, between Vermont and Viaduct
Avenues. Both were built by Alexander Campbell and both came about
as a result of the construction of the Superior Viaduct,
Cleveland's first high level bridge, which opened to traffic in
1878. In the course of planning construction of the west side
approach to the Viaduct, the City had purchased an eighty foot wide
swath of land (part of the Alonzo Carter Allotment) located just
east of the intersection of Pearl Street and Vermont Avenue. This
purchase split a number of parcels of land and, among other things,
created a triangular piece of land with frontage on Pearl Street,
Vermont Avenue and the new Viaduct Avenue. During the period
1877-1882, Campbell, a Scottish immigrant who had settled in
Cleveland in 1867 and had become a prominent paving contractor in
the city, purchased all of the land interests which comprised the
triangular area with the intent of constructing a commercial
building and hotel on the land.

Campbell's first building--identified on early maps as
"Campbell's Block" and located on the eastern part of the
triangular piece of land, was a three-story, wood and brick
building which fronted on Viaduct Avenue. It was completed in 1880.
The upper two floors were devoted to apartment suites, while the
first floor was divided into seven store fronts for retail
merchants, among whom over the years were butchers, confectioners,
cigar-makers, barbers, saloon keepers and others. One of those
store fronts was home to the offices of the Cleveland Graphic, a
weekly Democrat newspaper. And, in 1886, according to the Plain
Dealer, this was where Charles Salen, co-owner of the Graphic and
County Democrat party leader, organized Cleveland's first amateur
baseball league, which played its games on the southeast side at
Beyerle's Park (later called Forest City Park) for several years,
before moving to Brookside Park on the west side.

The second Campbell Block building--which many Clevelanders
still remember, was built in 1892, just to the west of the first
building. It was a red brick five-story building that was
originally planned as a hotel, but became instead an apartment
building with retail store fronts on the first floor. This building
had frontage on both Viaduct Avenue and Pearl Street. In 1897, the
building received acclaim for its innovative fire escape
system--called the "Burden" fire escape, which enabled fire
fighters to extract people from a burning building using a wire
basket hauled along rails attached to projections from the roof and
exterior sides. This new fire escape had been promoted and
installed on the building by Isaac Kidd, Alexander Campbell's
son-in-law and the father of the future-famed World War II war
hero, Admiral Isaac Campbell Kidd. Like the first building, this
building also had a variety of retail tenants on the first floor.
In the post World War II era, the most famous of these in the
neighborhood were J & L Seafoods, Green's Cafe, and the Old
Angle Gym.

By the time World War II arrived, Alexander Campbell's heirs now
owned and managed the two Campbell Block buildings. In 1948, the
first building--said by one County official to be in "very poor
shape," was torn down and in the same year the second was conveyed
out of the family. Gradually, as the surviving building aged and
deteriorated, it emptied of its apartment residents and
became--from a revenue perspective, primarily a site for billboard
signs. It's three locally famous first floor tenants--J & L
Seafoods, Green's Cafe, and the Old Angle Gym, however, continued
to operate their businesses there until the very the end. That end
came in late December 1975 when a wrecking ball knocked down the
building, demolishing the Block that the Superior Viaduct and
Alexander Campbell had created almost 100 years earlier.

As you explore St. Clair-Superior, you will see a traditional, turn
of the century, working-class, immigrant neighborhood. Yet there is
a small area, no larger than a city block, which feels out of
place. Instead of the multistory frame houses that mark a historic
mixed-use neighborhood like St. Clair-Superior, these brick houses
hearken to postwar suburban developments like those in Parma, Ohio.
In fact, residents of these houses refer to this small pocket of
St. Clair-Superior as “Little Parma.” While the out-of-place
architecture alone makes it noteworthy, Little Parma is important
for another reason. Little Parma, as well as nearby Grdina Park,
marks just some of the area destroyed by the worst fire in
Cleveland’s history, the East Ohio Gas Company Fire.

Originally built in 1902, the ten-acre East Ohio Gas Company
plant, spanning from East 55th to 63rd Streets, provided natural
gas to most of Cleveland, including many businesses in the
neighborhood. By 1940, part of the plant was converted to a
liquefaction, storage, and regasification facility, which was one
of the most modern gas plants in the country, safely storing large
quantities of liquefied gas in four separate holding tanks. While
it might seem odd today to have such a volatile substance amongst
residential homes, in early industrial cities before affordable
transportation it was practically a necessity for laborers to live
close to their place of employment. A gas storage facility was
simply one among many industrial operations one would expect to
find in a typical working-class neighborhood of the time. However,
given the plant's modernity and safety, people living in the area
felt they had no reason to fear. That is, until a fateful day in
October when fire fell from the sky.

It was an average Friday, a cool breeze blowing over the lake,
and the sounds of industry in the air. At the East Ohio Gas
Company, however, an equipment malfunction was about to change the
neighborhood forever. To most witnesses, it sounded like a clap of
thunder, an innocuous sound, nothing deserving much attention. It
was not until workers saw a stream of liquefied gas pouring out of
one of the cylindrical tanks that people began to panic. As the
liquefied gas flowed into the street, it vaporized into a thick
white fog that slowly snaked into the street. Given the incredibly
volatile nature of the expanding fog, it was not long before it
ignited, either due to friction or an open flame. The explosion
that followed destroyed the tank, while at the same time creating
fireballs which began falling into the neighborhood. For nearby
residents, the initial shaking of the explosion was little cause
for alarm. After all, the heavily industrialized neighborhood often
felt vibrations as factories used drop forge hammers. The hot air,
however, told a far different story: the city was about to
burn.

While the initial blast created the most devastation, there were
at least six more major explosions that occurred after the first
fire, continuing the inferno that was quickly spreading over 108
acres. One explosion, occurring about 20 minutes after Tank No. 4
failed, was a result of yet another holding tank erupting, sending
more fuel into the already devastating fire. Thankfully, the other
two holding tanks managed to withstand the heat, which at times
topped 3,000 degrees, and stress of the fire, preventing the
already devastating inferno from getting any larger. Nevertheless,
the failures were enough to engulf houses and automobiles.

Cleveland’s fire department were quick to respond but, due to
technical limitations, had difficulty with communications. The
department bravely fought the fire for hours while dealing with
intense heat, explosions, and equipment literally sinking into the
ground. By 7:00 pm, the assistant fire chief reported the fire was
contained between East 55th and. 63rd Streets. By midnight James
Granger, the fire chief, declared that the fire was under control.
Work continued for another two days and by Sunday, save a stubborn
pile of coal, the fire was finally extinguished.

The East Ohio Gas Company Fire marks one of Cleveland’s most
devastating disasters, destroying 79 houses, two factories, and 217
automobiles and damaging 85 houses and 18 factories. Property
destruction, while devastating, pales in comparison to the lives
lost in the fire. One hundred thirty civilians lost their lives to
the fire, 98 of whom were employees of the company. Shortly after
the explosion, the two undamaged tanks were carefully emptied,
keeping the area safe from further travesty. In order to help, City
Council appropriated $200,000 to the area for infrastructure
repair. Similarly, the recently formed St. Clair-Norwood
Rehabilitation Corporation raised money for victims, bought plots,
and built sixteen reasonably priced houses to sell to victims of
the disaster. These relief structures are the very houses that
comprise Little Parma today.

The victims of the explosion and fire are memorialized in
Highland Park Cemetery, where the unidentified bodies were buried,
a stark reminder of one of Cleveland’s most devastating disasters.
Today, Little Parma remains a unique and vibrant section of the St.
Clair-Superior neighborhood, showing a city's ability to move on
but also marking a dark chapter in Cleveland’s history.

The Union Gospel Press building—now known as Tremont Place
Lofts—looms over Tremont like a holy ghost. It is more than 160
years old and comprises 300,000 square feet, two acres, four
stories and 15 linked buildings. Like no other structure in the
neighborhood, it is a larger-than-life presence and a constant
reminder of Tremont’s elaborate history.

On June 3, 1850, The Herald, a Cleveland newspaper, announced
that a national university would be built in Cleveland. Patterned
after Brown University in Rhode Island, the new institution would
be called Cleveland University (CU): 275 acres stretching northeast
from what we now know as Lincoln Park to the lip of Cleveland’s
Flats. Accordingly, the name of the area morphed from Cleveland
Heights to University Heights, which explains the preponderance of
academically oriented street names—College, Professor, University
and Literary—all of which are located within the boundaries of the
proposed university. CU’s (unimplemented) plans also called for a
female seminary, an orphan asylum and a home for the aged.
Unfortunately, Thirza Pelton, the prime mover and benefactor of
“CU” died in 1853 and the University soon folded, having graduated
only 11 students. Only a small number of CU structures were
actually built. A few of the buildings that now compose Union
Gospel Press (Tremont Place Lofts) are all that remain of Cleveland
University.

In 1858, Professor Ransom Humiston opened the Humiston
Institute, a co-ed college preparatory school, in several of the CU
buildings. During the Civil War, the Institute provided free
educational services to disabled soldiers, many of whom trained or
mustered out at Camp Cleveland, just a stone’s throw away. Humiston
Institute closed in 1869 (in its final year it had an enrollment of
196 pupils) and the site soon became the Cleveland Homeopathic
Hospital College, one of many sites that eventually combined to
become Huron Road Hospital. When the latter facility opened in East
Cleveland in 1880, the Cleveland Homeopathic property was no longer
needed.

In 1907, the Herald Publishing House and the Gospel Workers
Society relocated its headquarters from Williamsport, PA, to the CU
site at Jefferson Avenue and West 7th Street. The organizations
were rechristened Union Gospel Press when they merged in 1922. For
the next quarter century, the company added buildings, housed
workers and missionaries in on-site dormitories, and became the
largest producer of religious materials in the world. According to
a 2003 oral history, “Many [workers would don] the Gospel Worker
Society navy-blue dress uniform to join sidewalk singing and
preaching efforts on Public Square.” In 1950, Union Gospel Press
left Tremont and took up residence at its present location at
Brookpark and Broadview Roads.

After Union Gospel Press’ closing, the buildings were used at
various times for offices, light manufacturing, a thermo electrical
company, a lithography school, a church, and a rooming house. For a
time, books were printed for the Cleveland Catholic Diocese. By the
mid 1960s, only 10,000 square feet—less than 5 percent of the
complex was rented. Squatters often occupied the many vacant
spaces.

The building(s) fell further into disrepair for several more
decades. In 1987, Joe Scully, a former iron worker, longshoreman,
boxer and metal sculptor, bought the complex for $74,000. Scully
resided in one of the attached buildings—an 1870s house facing
Jefferson Avenue—and worked (for the most part unsuccessfully) to
turn the complex into an artists’ colony.

In June, 2003, Scully sold the buildings to Corvallis
Development Company for $1.4 million. Corvallis launched a $21
million renovation, with the aid of Sandvick Architects and a $4
million tax credit from the state of Ohio. The end product,
completed in 2009, was a high-end 102-apartment community called
Tremont Place Lofts.

Six years later, Will Hollingsworth opened a 60-seat bar at the
base of Tremont Place Lofts. Hollingsworth named it The Spotted
Owl, noting the legend that a spotted owl “is wisely infused with
spirits of nuns and poets.” For the bar’s edgy, old-world feel,
Hollingsworth channeled the “Dead Rabbit” cocktail bar in New York,
where he had once worked. The Dead Rabbits were a notorious 19th
Century Irish-American street gang. The floor of The Spotted Owl
once lined a barn in central Ohio.

In 1850 Bishop Amadeus Rappe traveled to Boulogne, France to seek
aid from his former colleagues for the Cleveland Diocese. He
invited the Ursuline nuns to come to Cleveland to initiate efforts
to provide education within the diocese. In August 1850, four
sisters traveled to Cleveland and assumed residence in the Samuel
Cowles House secured by the Bishop near East Fourth Street and
Euclid Avenue. By September, a space was opened to board girls and
provide a day school. During the ensuing years, the school expanded
in enrollment and the nuns required more space to accommodate
growth. The Ursulines began staffing parish day schools by 1853 and
also ventured to Youngstown, Toledo, and Tiffin, Ohio, as the
community grew in size. By 1874, Bishop Gilmour determined the
conditions at the facility on Euclid could no long adequately serve
the students, staff, and program. He sought property on the
lakeshore in the village of Nottingham, just east of Collamer
Village. Thirty-seven acres of property bounded by Euclid Creek to
the east was owned by George Gilbert and was for sale. The Bishop
originally sought the land as a site for a diocesan seminary but
thought again to urge the nuns to consider the property. They
toured the beautiful property, buried religious medals at the site
and prayed for a favorable acquisition of the land. Mr. Gilbert met
the offer tendered by the Sisters and completed the sale in June
1874. They named the grounds Villa Angela in honor of their
foundress Saint Angela Merici. The Ursulines used the next three
years to build a residence and a school for girls called St. Mary's
Academy and began classes in September 1878 for boarding and day
school enrollees.

At the urging of Cleveland’s bishop, the Ursulines opened a
school for boys in 1886 on the grounds at Villa Angela. St.
Joseph's Seminary grew in service to young boys in grades one to
eight. In 1892 a new larger building was built to accommodate the
boys at St. Joseph's; it remained in service until 1946 when a fire
destroyed the facility. Interestingly, about six years later, the
Marionists, a Catholic order of priests and brothers, would open
Saint Joseph’s High School about a mile east of the Villa Angela
property on the Lake Erie shore.

Meanwhile, St. Mary's remained a popular residence and day
school for girls staffed and managed by the Ursulines. The property
housed the schools, a convent for the nuns and open orchard
property. In 1906 the Humphrey Company (owners of next door
neighbor Euclid Beach) bought 11 acres of Villa Angela property.
The real estate proved most profitable and provided ongoing
financial support for the Ursuline educational efforts in the
community. It is unclear from historical records when the school
was renamed Villa Angela Academy which served girls as a high
school until its merger in 1990 with St. Joseph High School. Villa
Angela - St. Joseph High School serves coed classes on the lake
shore at East 185th Street.

The original Villa Angela property is currently owned by the
City of Cleveland and is the home of a branch of the Cleveland
Public Library. The surrounding grounds make up part of the system
of lakeshore parks on Cleveland’s east and west sides. Villa Angela
Beach adjoins Euclid Beach Park and Wildwood Park to provide scenic
overlooks, a fishing pier, a sandy beach and boat launch access to
Lake Erie.

Cleveland once ranked as one of the nation’s leaders in garment
manufacturing, thanks in large part to the Cleveland Worsted Mills.
An immense sight in its heyday, the plant suffered years of neglect
and decline after its closure, until a fire destroyed much of the
complex. Today the industrial giant is largely forgotten, but the
impact it had on Cleveland and environmental laws has remained.

In 1878, Joseph Turner started the Turner Worsted Mill, renamed
the Cleveland Worsted Mill in 1902. The Cleveland Plant, located at
5932 Broadway Ave., handled every aspect of the worsted cloth
process, from scouring and sorting wool to boiling the cloth. At
the height of production in the 1920s, the mill ran over 500 looms
and consumed between 25-35,000 pounds of wool daily.

As one of the leading employers of the area's large immigration
population, namely Polish and Czechs, the company expanded rapidly.
In 1908, a $200,000 addition, including a six-story brick steel
factory building and a three-story office building, was completed.
To ease employee concerns of safety, exterior stairways and
elevator shafts were implemented in the new building and existing
buildings were altered to include elevators as well. With the
addition the facility became the second largest plant for worsted
production in the country.

Despite its national recognition and financial success, the
company had a difficult relationship with its employees. In 1934,
the plant closed for almost three months due to striking over union
discrimination. In 1937, complaints were made against the company
for “terrorizing and intimidating employees” to keep them from
joining the Textile Workers Organizing Committee and workers again
went on strike for a few weeks. Striking broke out again in August
1955, brought on by a breakdown in talks between company officials
and the Textile Workers Organization. Rather than continue talks,
Cleveland Worsted Mills chose to liquidate its assets in January of
1956.

Although the company was gone, disaster again struck the plant
in 1993. In April, 100 barrels of potentially hazardous materials
were found left improperly stored in the warehouse complex. The
material was found to be flammable and reports state the building
had no working sprinkler system. It was determined the barrels
would remain in the building until it was known was they contained
and who was responsible for them as there was some dispute over who
owned the property. While city officials were trying to determine
who owned the property, an arson fire destroyed the complex on July
4. City fire officials were aware of the danger the barrels within
the mill presented and had already created a plan to fight the
blaze they correctly figured was inevitable.

As a result of the fire, new laws were put in place with tougher
punishments for environmental offenders. It became a crime for
companies to walk away from a site without cleaning up
contamination, the courts could force them to pay for the cleanup,
and any damage incurred was the company’s responsibility.
Environmental nuisances were added to the state's nuisance
abatement laws that allow the state to take over such
properties.

The city spent $3 million to clean up the debris from the fire
and fill in the land. A few years later, it became the Boys and
Girls Club of Cleveland. The organization runs a recreational and
educational site on more than five acres of the 12.5-acre
complex.

The small, two and half story, red brick building lying in the
shadow of the long-abandoned Richmond Bros. complex on East 55th
Street is not exactly welcoming. The building sits on a weed-filled
lawn behind a small parking lot, surrounded by a barbed-wire-topped
chain link fence. The windows are covered and the small sign above
the doorway can barely be made out from the street. Security
cameras are prominently placed and focused on the entrance of the
building. An unassuming passerby may well wonder what sort of
nefarious deeds are occurring there that warrant such secrecy and
security. Well, none, actually—other than some rather aggressive
digging, setting and spiking. It happens to be the hall of the
Cleveland East Side Turners, Northeast Ohio’s most popular
volleyball club.

Like its building, the history behind the East Side Turners
would surprise many unknowing passersby. Turners is an
Americanization of Turnverein, a gymnastics movement started in
1811 by Friedrich Ludwig Jahn in the Germanic lands of Central
Europe. Jahn was a nationalist who wanted a united Germany, but,
above all, he believed proper exercise would propel the Germanic
people to preeminence in the region. Seen by some as an eccentric
outcast with xenophobic, anti-Semitic, and militaristic tendencies
bent on improving the Germanic race, it is not hard to understand
why some historians have drawn parallels between Jahn and a later
German with a similar worldview and mindset—Adolph Hitler. Jahn was
exiled during Clemons von Metternich’s anti-liberalism crusade in
1819, becoming a mere figurehead as his Turnverein evolved into a
more inclusive group. After the Germanic Revolutions of 1848 the
organization was disbanded and its leaders arrested, which led many
members to seek new lives with greater freedom and economic
opportunity in the United States.

The Cleveland Turnverein was the fourth formed in the U.S.
behind Cincinnati, Boston, and Philadelphia. Established in 1850,
the members initially met at Welch & Frank’s—a local,
German-run shop, while practicing their gymnastic exercises in
Bellevue Garden on Central Avenue near what would later become the
Gateway complex. Membership grew as Germans continued to flock to
the Cleveland area in the mid-19th century, until the Civil War
intervened. The Turnverein members tended to be staunch
abolitionists and the entire Cleveland Turnverein joined the Union
Army en masse in 1861. Their initial three-month enlistment created
the 150-man, Company K of the 7th Ohio Volunteers—the first
all-German unit from Cleveland. Most members immediately reenlisted
in the same regiment after this first stint, and the unit fought
bravely at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and Chattanooga. One
Turnverein member from the original Company K, Dr. Charles
Hartmann, instead joined the illustrious 107th Ohio Infantry as the
regimental surgeon. At Chancellorsville on May 2, 1863, he entered
the fray in an attempt to rally the troops and prevent the regiment
from being routed. However, he was gunned down by advancing
Confederate troops, and became the only surgeon killed in battle
during the war.

As German-American soldiers made their way home after the war
and attempted to reunite the Turnverein, difficulties arose and the
social club splintered. In 1867, a west side group began meeting at
the Free German School auditorium on Mechanic Street (now West
38th). Another faction stationed on the near east side of downtown
started calling themselves the Germania Turnverein in 1876,
initially meeting at a hall on Woodland Avenue before building
Germania Hall on Erie Street (East 9th) a dozen years later. Yet
another group, calling themselves the Turnverein Vonvaerts, formed
in 1890, and in 1893 they built the red-brick hall on the corner of
Willson Avenue (East 55th) and Harlem Street. The Germania
Turnverein merged with the Vonvaerts in 1908 and the combined clubs
have since remained at that location in the shadow of the Richmond
Bros. building.

The athletic emphasis of the Cleveland Turnverein was
reestablished after World War I and they regularly held large,
public gymnastic displays. Men and women would engage in elaborate
demonstrations that showcased their agility and strength at public
venues in front of enormous crowds—a kind of forerunner to today’s
Cirque du Soleil. One prominent member, Dr. Karl Zapp, was an early
and loud advocate for instituting physical education classes in
school curricula. It is through his early efforts that American
children have enjoyed the benefits, or torments, of gym classes
since the 1920s. The Turnverein was also instrumental in
popularizing bowling throughout the United States as a form of
recreational exercise.

Aside from brave Civil War medics, various lithe gymnasts and
physical education proponents, many illustrious Clevelanders have
been members of the Cleveland Turnverein. Ernst Mueller was one of
Cleveland’s most successful brewers, founding the very popular
Cleveland Home Brewing Co, and serving as President of the enormous
Cleveland-Sandusky Brewing Corp. The architect Theodore Schmitt was
responsible for many public structures throughout Cleveland,
including the Cuyahoga County Courthouse, the Joseph & Feiss
Building, and the Euclid Avenue Temple, among many others. His
father Jacob was Chief of Police for the city, and when he died in
1893, his obituary in the Cleveland Plain Dealer claimed that he
was “better known than any other one man in the city.” Although the
Turnverein concentrated on athletics, and gymnastics in particular,
it also served as a German social club for the city’s large and
influential German population, and many of its members were
prominent citizens.

The World Wars brought certain prejudices, and German-Americans
during this time sought to distance themselves from purely Germanic
associations and better assimilate into American life. To this end,
the Turnverein began referring to itself simply as the more
acceptably American sounding--American Turners. By 1941, the
Turnverein Vonvaerts had become the Cleveland East Side
Turners.

As the enthusiasm waned for public displays of gymnastics, the
East Side Turners eventually transformed into an organization
running popular volleyball leagues and tournaments. The outlying
structures of the property on East 55th Street, which once included
a separate meeting hall and a large kitchen facility, eventually
were lost until only the gymnasium remained. Although this lone
building in a corner of the resurgent St. Clair-Superior
neighborhood may look foreboding, volleyball enthusiasts of every
nationality are warmly welcomed here. Like the convoluted history
of its ancestral gymnastics club, the nondescript brick building
that is home to today’s Cleveland East Side Turners is far more
interesting, and less frightening, than it seems at first
glance.

What kind of pub gets shout-outs from national media ranging from
Maxim and GQ to Huffington Post and Better Homes and Gardens? The
answer is Prosperity Social Club—one of Tremont’s, and Cleveland’s,
homiest and most storied spots for drinking and dining.

Prosperity Social Club, formerly known as Dempsey's Oasis, has a
history that comprises almost 80 years. That history started with
Jack Dempsey, heavyweight boxing champion of the world from 1919 to
1926, and namesake of the pub's original incarnation. Stanley
Dembowski, born in Dulsk, Poland, in 1896 (one year after Jack
Dempsey was born in Manassa, CO), opened Dempsey’s Oasis on
Starkweather Avenue in 1938. Dembowski fought in France in World
War I and was discharged on June 18, 1919. Sixteen days later,
Dempsey won the heavyweight crown, knocking out Jess Willard. In a
1982 interview with The Plain Dealer, Stanley Dembowski recalled
betting $500 that Dempsey would defeat Gene Tunney in their 1926
fight. Dempsey lost, but from then on “Everyone began calling me
Dempsey. So when I started this business [at 1109 Starkweather,
which previously hosted an establishment called Hot Dog Bill’s], I
called it Dempsey’s. The Oasis part was added because an oasis is
where thirsty people go to get dethirsted.” Stanley retired in 1967
and his son Richard, together with wife Theresa, took over. They
remained until 2000 when the pub was sold to a pair of Irish
businessmen. Veteran restaurateur Bonnie Flinner purchased the
establishment five years later and renamed it Prosperity Social
Club—a salute to the sardonic optimism that pervaded the Great
Depression.

In a 2015 interview, Richard Dembowski stated that one of the
restaurant’s keys to success was its ability to attract a diverse
clientele: Tremont residents, downtown businesspeople,
steelworkers, healthcare workers from Metro General and so on. He
noted sanitation as another cornerstone—that the family made such a
strong commitment to cleanliness that the local health inspector
became a regular patron. According to Dembowski, “The inspector
knew where he could get a good, safe meal.” The Dembowskis also
gained a place in the neighborhood’s heart by actually being
“locals” (they lived next door) and by being exceptional citizens.
The family worked on Saint Augustine Church’s Food for the Poor
campaigns and spearheaded Coats for Kids programs. In the 1980s,
Stanley and Richard became local spokesmen for the Polish
Solidarity campaign—the first independent labor union in a
Soviet-bloc country and a key contributor to the eventual collapse
of the Soviet Union.

A final success factor, recalled Dembowski, was that Dempsey’s
was the first public house in the neighborhood to have a
television. Good food, drinks, camaraderie and TV: a winning
combination in any decade. Small wonder that people occasionally
refer to Dempsey’s/Prosperity as a real-world “Cheers.”

Like any great old pub, Prosperity Social Club has changed
little in appearance. Art Deco influences, wormy chestnut walls, a
walnut bar, and vintage beer memorabilia abound. Most of the tables
and chairs are original. A flickering television quietly displays
shows from the 1950s and 1960s. A kitschy game room includes an
old-fashioned bowling machine and vintage board games. One thing
the pub lacks, however, is clichéd celebrity photos, although there
certainly have been enough notable visitors. Over the years,
Dempsey’s/Prosperity has been patronized by notables ranging from
Dennis Kucinich and George Voinovich to John Glenn and Robert De
Niro (the latter showed up in full “army greens” during the 1977
filming of The Deer Hunter).

Not only is Prosperity Social steeped in history, it also is
surrounded by history. Immediately to the west is the Lincoln Park
Baths (c. 1921), the last of 10 bathhouses erected in Cleveland to
provide sanitary services to the working poor. Next to the Baths is
the building that once housed the Royal movie theater, one of
several theaters in or near the Tremont neighborhood. And across
the street is Lincoln Park, public green space whose “roots” date
to the 1850s. But in that special way that only pubs can be,
Prosperity Social Club is truly ”living history.”

You can't walk through downtown Cleveland today without noticing
and marveling at the ongoing restoration of the beautiful Scofield
building, constructed in 1902 on the southwest corner of Euclid
Avenue and East Ninth Street. And who hasn't visited Public Square
without noticing the imposing 125-foot tall Soldiers and Sailors
Monument there, dedicated in 1894 to Cleveland's Civil War heroes.
But the magnificent mansion of the man who designed these two
iconic Cleveland landmarks? Sitting for the last 117 years at 2438
Mapleside Road in the city's Buckeye-Woodhill neighborhood, hardly
anyone notices it today. And, sadly, it is slowly crumbling into
ruins.

Levi Tucker Scofield, the man who designed the Soldiers and
Sailors Monument and built the Scofield Building, as well as the
mansion on Mapleside Road, was a third-generation Clevelander, born
in 1842 on Walnut Street, near today's downtown intersection of
East Ninth and Superior Avenue. His grandfather Benjamin, a
carpenter, came to Cleveland from the state of New York in 1816,
and built some of the early-era buildings in what is now the city's
downtown. Levi's father William followed in the family business,
likewise becoming a carpenter and also a builder who contributed to
the early building up of downtown Cleveland. In the 1850s, William
purchased property on the southwest corner of Erie (East Ninth) and
Euclid Avenue, and in about 1861 built a boarding house there,
which also served as his family's residence. Growing up in such a
family, it is not surprising that Levi decided to become an
architect.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Levi Scofield, just 19
years old, left Cleveland to fight for the North. He joined the
103rd Regiment as a private, but was soon commissioned a second
lieutenant. By the War's end, he had risen to the rank of Captain.
In 1865, he returned to Cleveland and began his career as an
architect. His work covered a wide range of building types. He
designed mansions for Euclid Avenue millionaires. He also designed
school buildings--including the new Central High School building on
Euclid Avenue (next door to his father's boarding house) in 1877.
He was an early architect of penitentiary buildings, creating the
plans for the Athens, Ohio Lunatic Asylum (1868)--today, housing
the Kennedy Museum of Art at Ohio University, the North Carolina
State Penitentiary (1870), and the Ohio State Reformatory at
Mansfield (1886). Scofield also designed monuments--not just the
famous Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Cleveland Public Square
(1894), but also--and perhaps just as important to his national
reputation, the 'These Are My Jewels' monument for the State of
Ohio that was featured at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. And, of
course, he designed office buildings, including the downtown
Scofield Building.

In the 1890s, as the Euclid Avenue corridor in downtown
Cleveland was transforming into a commercial district, Levi
Scofield decided to move from what had been his boyhood
neighborhood of Erie (East Ninth) Street and Euclid Avenue, to the
"country"--the southeast side of Cleveland, near today's
intersection of Quincy Avenue and Woodhill Road. There on a bluff
overlooking the Fairmount Reservoir--which was then a picturesque
body of water, he purchased six plus acres of land and designed and
built a beautiful residence for his family. The three-story,
stone-facade Victorian style house with over 6,000 square feet of
living space was completed in 1898. Scofield resided there until
his death in 1917.

After the death of Levi Scofield, his family remained in the
house until 1925, when it was sold to the Cleveland Catholic
Diocese. For the next thirty years, the Scofield mansion served as
a chapel, a mission headquarters, and as a convent for the Sisters
of the Most Holy Trinity. In 1955, the Sisters sold the property,
and the mansion became a nursing home--first Mapleside Nursing and
then Baldwin Manor, until approximately 1990, when it closed. Since
that time, the mansion has been vacant and has experienced neglect
and disrepair. Now nearly 120 years old, the Levi Scofield mansion
is on the brink of demolition. There has been much talk in recent
years about the Opportunity Corridor and what that new roadway
might bring to the Buckeye-Woodhill neighborhood on Cleveland's
southeast side, where this mansion still stands. Whether the new
corridor will be built in time to bring new opportunity to the
historic Levi Scofield Mansion, though, is anyone's guess.

In 1938, Ben Stefanski and his wife Gerome started Third Federal
Savings and Loan, with the promise of helping those in the
community achieve the dream of home ownership and financial
security. In addition to offering mortgage loans, Third Federal has
long been dedicated to educating their customers on the
requirements of home ownership beyond the down payment.

Through the years, Third Federal expanded far beyond its home
office at 7007 Broadway Avenue. In 1957, the company opened a
second branch in Brecksville and by the end of the 1960s had an
additional seven branches. By 1983, the savings and loan had 16
branch offices and $1.08 billion in assets. Today, Third Federal
has 46 branch offices in Ohio and Florida, and lends in 21 states
and the District of Columbia, making it the largest Polish
American-led financial institution in the country.

While the company has always dedicated itself to helping members
of the Slavic Village community afford homes, they have also earned
a reputation as a company devoted to giving back to the community
through philanthropy. Ben Stefanski was a strong supporter of the
arts movement, most noted by the commissioning of a mural by Peter
Paul Dubaniewicz. The mural was dedicated to the public and depicts
the building of America by men of many cultures.

In addition to the arts, Stefanski was a great supporter of
education in the community. In 1965, he gave $1 million to the
Catholic Diocese High School Fund for the building of 11 new high
schools and expansion of seven existing schools. It was this
extreme charity that earned him the nickname “Benefactor”
Stefanski. Today, Third Federal still follows the example of Mr.
Stefanski in their dedication to the education and health of those
in the community. In 2007, the company created the $55 million
Third Federal Foundation when the company went public through its
IPO. The purpose of the foundation is to bring partners together in
collaboration of programs that promote education in the community.
The foundation’s initiatives include the P-16 program and a Service
Scholarship program at Cleveland Central Catholic High School. The
P-16 program works closely with the Cleveland Metropolitan School
District to improve educational experiences for those in the Slavic
Village through the implementation of tutoring programs, after
school programs, and scholarships. They have also collaborated with
Metro Health to put a clinic in a local school. The program has
proven so effective that a mobile health clinic was added to
service additional schools, more school-based clinics are
planned.

Most recently, Third Federal developed Trailside Slavic Village.
A neighborhood of new construction, affordable housing, built on
the site of former light industrial buildings. Beginning
construction in 2013, Trailside is located along the Morgana Run
Trail and is adjacent to the Third Federal headquarters. Currently
in Phase 1, the development offers two different style homes, each
with three bedrooms and open floor plans. All of the homes meet or
exceed Cleveland’s Green Energy standard with down payment
assistance and tax abatement.

Third Federal is committed to benefiting not only the
surrounding community, but also the associates who make the company
as successful as it has become. Third Federal has been featured on
Forbes' list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For, and the company
boasts that it has not had a single layoff in its history.
Associates are cross-trained to assist in other areas as needed.
Third Federal offers a number of training opportunities, tuition
reimbursement, and throws annual appreciation events.

In its 77 years of operation, Third Federal has become a crucial
piece of the Slavic Village neighborhood through its continued
dedication to the betterment of the community as a whole. The
company has long lived up to its mission of “helping people achieve
the dream of home ownership and financial stability, while creating
value for our communities, our customers, our associates, and our
stockholders.”

In the early 1880s, an idea arose in the Lodge Bratri v Kruhu of
the Czech Slovak Benevolent Association that people of Bohemian
nationality needed a community building dedicated to their
societies and culture. In August 1887, Bohemian representatives met
to discuss the possibility of creating such a space.

The cornerstone for Bohemian National Hall was laid on December
20, 1896, and was dedicated the following September. During the
dedication ceremonies, all local Bohemian communities and societies
were invited to participate, but every other ethnic group was
excluded to make this a distinctly Bohemian celebration. Bohemians
attended the celebrations from Chicago, Detroit, Pennsylvania,
Toledo, and even New York. The hall served as a meeting place for
over 40 lodges, societies, and clubs. In 1911, classrooms were
added to teach language skills.

In the late summer of 1900, the Bohemian National Turners
Association held their annual convention in Cleveland. A number of
tournaments took place at area locations such as Forest City Park
and Central Armory with about 400 members in Cleveland alone and
800 visiting delegates. On August 23, the award banquet for the
convention was held in the Bohemian National Hall.

The hall also brought large crowds for its annual celebration of
Jan Hus Day. Hus was a Bohemian reformer burned at the stake on
July 6, 1415, for heresy and is considered a national hero. The
Bohemians would have large celebrations including plays and various
performances. In 1915, events at Gordon Park brought 20,000
Bohemians to the area with many attending later events at the
hall.

Also in 1915, representatives for the Czech and Slovak people
met in the hall to discuss the need for a common sovereign state.
This meeting, now known as the Cleveland Agreement, sparked the
idea of creating what would come to be Czechoslovakia. On May 10,
1945, celebrations were held for the liberation of Czechoslovakia
from German occupation with speeches by Louis Krch, president of
the Slovak National Alliance and Joseph Novy, of the
Czechoslovakian Consul. The celebration called for unity among
Czechs and their European neighbors--Poland, Hungary, and Austria.
Cleveland area Czechs also began a collection drive of clothing and
household goods that would be dropped off at the hall and later
sent to war torn Czechoslovakia.

In May 1975, Bohemian National Hall was added to the National
Register of Historic Places. The next month, the hall was sold to
the American Sokol Inc. Sokol is a program dedicated to the idea of
a strong mind and body, emphasizing the importance of physical
fitness. After the sale, the hall continued to host Sokol meetings,
gymnastic events, lodge functions, Czech classes, and other
Czech-oriented cultural events. A major renovation and restoration
project in the early 2000s added an athletic facility and museum,
now used as the Czech Cultural Center.

Today, the hall still teaches classes, holds events and
meetings, and serves as a source of information and pride for the
Cleveland Czech population.